Mayo Clinic Cancer Center Southwest U.S. Diversity Outreach

Mayo Clinic in Arizona serves a multi-ethnic Southwestern population within a state comprised of almost a third Hispanic, but less than five percent African American, Native American or Asian. Mayo Clinic Cancer Center in Arizona has taken the initiative to conduct ten cancer clinical trials in 2008 at the Phoenix Indian Medical Center. The first of these trials, (NO147) was activated for accrual in November, 2007.

Community outreach facilitates the building of collaborations with the Akimel O’othom, the River People of the Gila River Indian Community, and with the Navaho Nation, a community of approximately a quarter million Native Americans residing in the Four Corners area of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. Mayo Clinic Cancer Center researchers have solidified collaborations between Mayo and the Navajo tribe's Diné College by successfully securing a federally funded Comprehensive Minority Institution/Cancer Center Partnership (CMI/CCP) grant (U20).

Cancer Center members and staff at Mayo Clinic in Arizona continue to build community outreach programs that establish and expand opportunities for research collaborations with the Hispanic and Native American community in the greater Phoenix area. Mayo Clinic has committed support for coordinators and patient navigators to increase access to Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center engages with Mountain Park Health Center system, a network of five clinics in Phoenix that serve cancer patients from the largely Hispanic community. The center supports a data manager for electronic data collection in a community-based cancer screening program (supported by the federal Health Services Research Administration); mammography equipment; and screening and diagnostic mammography services. Mayo Clinic Cancer Center and Maricopa County Hospital interface to promote regional research opportunities and participation in clinical trials through the provision of a Mayo-trained physician on the Maricopa County Hospital Hematology/Oncology staff.