Section 1.3: Strategies for Engagement
Module 1: Find Power in Partnerships
Strategies for Engagement
In 2022, the National Association for Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD), in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hosted a webinar to explore how partnerships and policy engagement can effectively integrate environmental carcinogen reduction into cancer prevention and control.
Click below to watch NACDD webinar:
An NACDD webinar brief derived from the panelist discussion during the webinar above identified techniques that cancer coalitions could use in nurturing new value-added collaborations, including:
1. Creating partnerships with coalitions/networks inclusive of non-traditional partners working towards new economies that prioritize public health and minimize community exposure to carcinogens.
Asking the question: “Who else can be allies in the effort to reduce occupational and environmental cancer risks?” will generate more ideas for new strategic partners with interests aligned with the goal of reducing environmental and occupational cancer risks. Many individuals and organizations may not even be aware of the statewide comprehensive cancer control plan and the opportunities it offers through state programs, policies, and collective coalition member action to scale change.
2. Creating environmental carcinogen action teams within a cancer coalition which include organizations across a given state with a shared interest in reducing the occurrence of avoidable cancer diagnoses from known carcinogens.
Carcinogen or cancer-type teams provide a vehicle for people to collaborate to reduce cancer risk with a focus on environmental and occupational carcinogens.
3. Collaborating with community-based organizations to enhance the voices of people directly impacted by inequitable exposure to environmental carcinogens.
Module 5 elevates the need to support authentic and meaningful engagement with environmental justice communities and/or their representative organizations. These partners are crucial for advancing health equity. Their observations and sensitivities, based on their lived experiences, can ensure that targets and strategies for reducing environmental cancer risk will succeed.
4. Using partners’ data to identify priority targets for carcinogen exposure reduction and developing new partnerships with communities and organizations to enhance capacity to work on identified strategies.
As highlighted in Module 2, fostering additional partnerships with scientific experts can advance understanding of the signals in the data and contribute to setting risk reduction priorities.
As highlighted in Module 2, fostering additional partnerships with scientific experts can advance understanding of the signals in the data and contribute to setting risk reduction priorities.