Education & Training

The partnership between The Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and Siteman Cancer Center investigates rural cancer disparities and ways to help educate, train, and implement effective strategies to reduce the disparities seen in rural communities.

The project will study obesity, the coexistence of obesity-related chronic diseases, and mortality in the United States in terms of life expectancy and lifetime healthcare.

This line of research strives to engage all members of the community throughout the research process to help navigate the healthcare process.

This project focuses on engaging community members in the research process by providing fellows with the knowledge and skills to implement public health interventions in their own neighborhoods.

Dr. Yin Cao received a Young Investigator Award from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. This two-year award will support Dr. Cao in her work addressing colorectal cancer survival disparities among patients diagnosed under age 50 through integrating patients, treatment, and tumor molecular characteristics.

This pilot project examined health literacy in the context of kidney cancer and smoking among rural populations in southern and central Illinois.

This project will address colorectal cancer mortality rates in rural Southern Illinois by  improving the screening process and follow-up for patients who have a positive fecal blood test (FOBT, FIT).

This project will develop tailored, patient-centered education materials to facilitate treatment decisions in patients with Hepatitis C infection and chronic kidney disease.

The MAPP study is a cohort study of patients with interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) and chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) from six sites across the United States. It was designed to better understand the natural history of these conditions and their underlying causes, taking a “whole-body” rather than a bladder- or prostate-specific approach.

Yin Cao, ScD, MPH, and colleagues will analyze the efficacy of aspirin for chemoprevention in colorectal cancer cases.

The St. Louis Patient Research Advisory Board was founded by and consists of CRFT program alumni who have completed a 15-week training program on research methods and are certified to conduct research with human subjects by the Human Research Protections Office at the Washington University School of Medicine. The PRAB is designed to help investigators with community-engaged or community-based research proposals/projects by having community members review proposals and give feedback.

Dr. Yin Cao is leading efforts surround aspirin-based chemoprevention to inform future  multi-level interventions to improve the implementation of precision aspirin primary prevention strategies across systems, providers, and patients.

The mission of Siteman Cancer Center’s Program for the Elimination of Cancer Disparities (PECaD) is to create a national model for eliminating local and regional disparities in cancer education, prevention and treatment. Through a community advisory committee and community partnerships, PECaD works with community representatives to find solutions that reduce disparities.

A very dense breast on mammogram is one of the strongest risk factors for breast cancer, and many women in the United States have extremely dense breasts. There is, however, very limited knowledge on how to modify breast density to reduce breast cancer risk

This project, the Department of Defense Serum Repository Study of the Influence of Infections on Biomarkers of Prostate Pathology, is nested within the large population of men on active U.S. military duty with stored blood samples in the Department of Defense Serum Repository. The project examines the short- and longer-term influence of genitourinary and non-genitourinary infections on biomarkers of prostate pathology to inform the possible influence of infections on later prostate cancer risk.

The ColoCare Study follows a cohort of men and women who have been newly diagnosed with colorectal cancer (stages I-IV). This project's main interest is in quality-of-life and in rates of cancer recurrence and death.

This CRFT Alumni project, Unemployment and Mental Health Literacy among African American Mothers in St. Louis County, examined levels of stress experienced by unemployed African American mothers and whether educational materials about the effects of stress related to unemployment improved their recognition of stress, stress management and knowledge of when to seek services.

Personalized health assessment tool that allows people to see their risk for common chronic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer risk.