Lance Armstrong Foundation funds ENACCT-CCPH Communities as Partners Initiative

LANCE ARMSTRONG FOUNDATION PARTNERS WITH ENACCT TO PROMOTE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CANCER CLINICAL TRIALS

SILVER SPRING, MD – October 8, 2007 – Building on nationwide efforts to increase public awareness of and participation in cancer clinical trials, the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) announced today its support for a new initiative that is working to improve cancer clinical research through meaningful community engagement.

The initiative, Communities as Partners in Cancer Clinical Trials: Changing Research, Practice and Policy, is a bold new effort to develop a national strategic plan to address the nation’s continuing low rates of cancer clinical trial participation, especially among racial and ethnic minorities and low income groups.

Led by LAF-national partner ENACCT (The Education Network to Advance Cancer Clinical Trials) and CCPH (Community-Campus Partnerships for Health), the planning process is an unprecedented collaboration that is bringing together a diverse group of stakeholders to explore ways to improve the cancer clinical research process utilizing the principles of community based participatory research (CBPR). CBPR is a well-established approach to health research that equitably involves communities and investigators in all aspects of the research process – from development through implementation, dissemination and translation into clinical practice.

“Clinical trial participation is critical in the fight against cancer,” said Lance Armstrong, founder and chairman of LAF. “The sooner we can encourage more community participation and individual enrollment in the clinical trial process, the sooner we will have better treatment options for all cancers.”

“This project is unique in that we are looking at the problem of low clinical trial participation rates from a community perspective, not an institutional one,” said Margo Michaels, ENACCT’s Executive Director. “The recommendations developed through this planning process have enormous potential impact to change the way in which cancer clinical research is conducted at the local level and how it is funded.”

Sarena D. Seifer, CCPH executive director, noted that “although CBPR has been mainly employed in public health research, we believe it’s possible to incorporate its principles into every aspect of clinical research design and implementation.”