COE Consultations
Supporting research partnerships with local organizations
Reaching specific populations is key to the success of research projects and clinical trials— but participation barriers can limit reach and retention. The Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) team provides consultations to help you build trusted partnerships, improve recruitment, and ensure your work is relevant to community needs.
In most cases, our services are provided free of charge as part of pilot work. Opportunities exist for staff and community resources in funding opportunities and are determined on a case-by-case basis.
What We Provide
Support across every stage — from study design to community engagement to dissemination through:
Community Engagement:
Build meaningful partnerships and ensure cultural relevance.
Strategy & Collaboration:
Planning support and advisory input.
Reach & Recruitment:
Tailored outreach and recruitment strategies.
Get Started: Contact the COE team at cancerinfo@uvahealth.org
Success in Action
Investigators: Melissa Little
Success: 1,388 community members recruited, 77 pharmacists connected, NIH grant awarded
Overview: A multi-channel recruitment effort—social media, mail, and in-person—helped researchers reach participants for a catchment survey. In partnership with rural pharmacists, COE also engaged 77 pharmacists to test the feasibility of offering tobacco cessation services. This work laid the foundation for an NIH grant to expand the approach.
Quote: “COE was instrumental in launching my research into the community. I can’t imagine trying to do this work without their assistance.” — Melissa Little, PhD
Funding
COE, in partnership with the UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center, provides pilot funding to support community-based research projects. Proposals are reviewed by an internal team of COE, Cancer Center investigators, and Community Advisory Council representatives. (note do we have a link for more information?)
2025 Recipients
Investigators: Kristin Anderson
Area of Focus: Barriers to cancer research
Overview: Assess the barriers preventing cancer advocate engagement with basic and translational research from both the advocate and researcher perspectives.
Investigators: Jie Shen
Area of Focus: Breast Cancer
Overview: Determine whether differential associations of Chronic Stress (CS), CS-related pathways, and tumor progression-related gene expression profiles with neighborhood disadvantage and Breast Cancer (BC) outcomes between Black women and white women may contribute to the racial disparities in BC outcomes.
Investigators: Nao Hagiwara
Area of Focus: Healthcare Disparities
Overview: Assess the feasibility of two novel, theory-driven training materials by taking a community engagement approach. One material focuses on enhancing providers’ internal motivation; the other focuses on improving patient-provider communication.
Investigators: Wendy Cohn, Wang Yuh-Hwa
Area of Focus: Lung Cancer
Overview: Determine whether environmental/dietary chemicals can generate DNA breaks to lead to lung cancer (non-smoking) and identify hotspots of lung to determine association with known fragile site inducers.
Investigators: Li Li, Bhatnagar Sanchita
Area of Focus: Breast Cancer
Overview: Demonstrate that targeting TRIM37 will reduce disparate survival outcomes in African American women, or better identify patients most at risk for aggressive disease.