A Community-Academic Partnership to Plan and Implement an Evidence-Based Lay Health Advisor Program for Promoting Breast Cancer Screening

Despite a growing body of evidence concerning effective approaches to increasing breast cancer screening, the gap between research and practice continues. The North Carolina Breast Cancer Screening Program (NC-BCSP) is an example of an evidence-based intervention that uses trained lay health advisors (LHA) to promote breast cancer screening. Partnerships that link academic researchers knowledgeable about specific evidence-based programs with community-based practitioners offer a model for increasing their use. This article describes a partnership between CrossWorks, Inc., a community-based organization, and the UNC-CH Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in planning and implementing an evidence-based program for promoting breast cancer screening among older African American women in rural eastern North Carolina communities. We used in-depth interviews to explore the relationship of the partnership to the activities that were undertaken to launch the evidence-based program.