Collaborative Work Groups

One of CCSN's efforts, Collaborative Work Groups bring a broad
spectrum of perspectives together to focus on understanding and address
breast and lung cancer in a new way.

The causes of disparities in cancer outcomes have complex root causes and and often involve interactions between individual biology, behavioral risks, as well as the socio-cultural, physical, and political environments.

We believe that to effectively address cancer disparities, we need to look at the issue from many different perspectives including:

survivors,
physicians,
health care providers,
community based organizations,
researchers - from population science to biology.

These diverse collaborative work groups rarely occur naturally, and this collaboration isn't often intuitive. We are helping to bridge different perspectives, creating meaningful interaction, and growing partnerships through transdisciplinary collaboration.

In transdisciplinary collaboration, teams learn from each other, develop a broader and deeper understanding of a problem, and are better equipped to create effective solutions.

Collaborative Work Groups will be in urban and rural areas of the state, focused on specific topics associated with breast and lung cancer including:

environment
health care access and quality
stress
commercial tobacco use

Collaborative Work Group Leadership

David Frazer, MPH
Community Leader

Associate Director,
Center for Urban Population Health

Staci Young, PhD
Academic Leader

Associate Professor,
Family & Community Medicine,
Interim Director, Community Engagement,
Interim Senior Associate Dean,
Community Engagement
Medical College of Wisconsin

Tim Meister, MA
Program Manager

Medical College of Wisconsin

For more information on The Collaborative Work Groups Initiative, please contact Tim Meister, tmeister@mcw.edu