Outreach & Engagement News
Fresh, home-grown vegetables are becoming more plentiful in counties across Alabama and Mississippi with the expansion of a program designed to increase healthy food options and provide more opportunities for physical activity. The introduction of the Harvest for Health initiative signifies a major step for participants in the ongoing Chronic Disease & Health Disparities Program at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB.
The Office of Community Outreach & Engagement at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB continues its 25th anniversary event series on May 25 with a virtual conversation on community outreach in Latino, Latina and Latinx communities with Isabel Scarinci, Ph.D., MPH.
Joanice Thompson didn’t have a manual or a textbook about community outreach, engagement or research recruitment when she arrived at UAB more than 30 years ago.
Yet, by the time she retired in 2018, Thompson had become a sought-after authority on community engagement and on ensuring that community-based research translates into opportunities and improvements for those communities.
The list of projects, accomplishments and ongoing research led by Isabel Scarinci, Ph.D., MPH, runs pages long and carries worldwide significance. Yet, as a professor in the UAB Division of Preventive Medicine and the senior advisor for Globalization & Cancer at the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB, Scarinci remains unsatisfied until one specific goal is reached: eliminating cervical cancer as a public health problem.
Throughout its 25 years, the Office of Community Outreach & Engagement at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB has relied on community partners to form strategies that reach previously overlooked groups. Two of the newest members of the Community Advisory Board, Vanessa Vargas and Jean Hernandez, are serving as guides to help address health disparities among Alabama’s Latino, Latina and Latinx populations.
