Sharing Our Research With Scientists and the Public

Funding good research isn't enough. If the research is going to have an impact in the fight against breast cancer, people need to know the results. The scientific community needs to know, to make progress against the disease. The medical community needs to know, to improve prevention and treatment. Women with breast cancer need the opportunity to learn about new treatment options. Breast cancer activists need information about research results to help shape the fight against the disease. Communities affected by breast cancer need to know what's been proven to work in other communities. And the taxpayers of California need to know what their taxes are funding.

The scientists whose projects we fund publish the results in peer-reviewed scientific journals and present them at scientific conferences. However, the California Breast Cancer Research Program is committed to making the research we fund available to a much wider public. We publish and distribute our research widely, in print and over the Internet. We are one of the few research funding programs in the world to publish annual summaries of research while the studies are still in progress. The CBCRP does this so that scientists and other interested people can make use of the information as soon as possible. We get out the word about our research results and research in progress in a variety of ways:

Research Symposia: Every other year, we hold a Research Symposium, a statewide conference presenting the results of the research we fund. Our Symposium draws more breast cancer advocates and members of the public than is usual for such a scientific meeting. Our researchers present their findings in language geared toward the general public, and the meeting creates an opportunity for dialog between research scientists and breast cancer activists. Our 2001 symposium, with the theme, "From Research to Action," was postponed from September after the events of September 11 made travel difficult. The rescheduled symposium was held in Oakland during March 2002.

Web site: Our Web site (http://cbcrp.ucop.edu) is open to the public. It has summaries of all completed research projects and annual progress reports for ongoing projects, all in language accessible to the general reader. For anyone who wants a more detailed description, our summaries are linked to PubMed Abstracts, a public access Web site for all published scientific studies. Our Web site also contains a list of each year's awards and information on applying for grants.

Annual Reports: Our Annual Report, available free of charge to the public, contains summaries of all ongoing and completed research for the year. Multiple copies of our Annual Reports are available free of charge to organizations; the 1999 Annual Report was used during 2000 as a college text in a class for future health care professionals. Summary of Awards: To make it easy for scientists and the public to track CBCRP-funded research from the beginning, we publish a summary of new projects funded for the year. The summary is free to the public and posted on our Web site.

Newsletter: Our newsletter, also available free to the public and posted on our Web site, reports on new awards, research results, and other program news.

Special Outreach: The CBCRP makes special efforts to share its research results; during 2001, we continued and expanded these efforts by getting timely information on research to staff members of the statewide California Breast Cancer Early Detection Program. This state government program provides breast cancer screening to low-income women in California and is funded by the same tax on tobacco that provides the majority of funding for the CBCRP. Staff members at local early detection sites requested more information on research progress in early detection.

Serving the Media: When reporters from TV, newspapers, magazines, or other media need information on breast cancer research, the CBCRP links them with appropriate experts.

Speakers and Educational Bureau: When community organizations want speakers on breast cancer research for meetings and public events, we provide referrals from our network of researchers and advocates. We also refer research experts to teach continuing education classes for health care professionals.

“We publish and distribute our research widely, in print and over the Internet.”