Georgia CTSA's Community Engagement Program Joins Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital Raising Cancer Awareness
Every year, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital holds a women’s health conference in Albany, GA. The topic of this year’s conference, held in late October at Phoebe HealthWorks, was “Cancer Awareness: A matter of life and breath.” This year, Georgia CTSA’s Community Engagement (CE) program and over 600 women joined the conference to raise awareness about cancer as well as support one of its Community Steering Board members.
Darrell Sabbs, Community Benefits Coordinator at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, and a member of Georgia CTSA CE and Steering Board says, "This gives us an opportunity to not just wear pink, but to celebrate the courage of the women and families who have been fighting [breast cancer]. [These events are about] education and awareness in early detection.” Doctor Tabia Akintobi, Director of the Community Engagement program, states, “Darrell is a phenomenal asset and leader and we are blessed to have him as a member of the Georgia CTSA Community Engagement Steering Board as we continued to extend our reach across the state of Georgia.”
Georgia CTSA’s Community Engagement (CE) program is a core component of a collaborative effort between Emory University, Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), and University of Georgia (UGA). The program improves the way biomedical research is conducted and disseminated throughout Georgia and across the country. It works to unite existing academic-community research partnerships, facilitate community input into university research, and to increase health research in community settings that is both responsive and relevant to the health needs of the community.
The Georgia CTSA is a statewide partnership between Emory, Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia Tech, and UGA and is one of over 50 in a national consortium striving to improve the way biomedical research is conducted across the country. The consortium, funded through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Clinical and Translational Science Awards, shares a common vision to translate laboratory discoveries into treatments for patients, engage communities in clinical research efforts, and train the next generation of clinical investigators.