Community Engagement and Outreach Core

The Community Engagement and Outreach Core (CEOC) focuses on engaging populations that are disproportionately affected by cancer with the long-term goal of developing community-based research priorities that can be translated into improved health outcomes.

If you are planning to submit an application for one of the DaCCoTA RFAs, contact Community Coordinator Danielle Thompson or login to Pathfinder to schedule a consultation.

Main Objectives

• Engaging communities to identify community-based cancer research priorities
• Increasing culturally appropriate research involving rural and American Indian (AI) communities through bidirectional outreach and training
• Promoting dialogue and disseminating findings from the DaCCoTA to community stakeholders

CEOC Core Faculty

Donald Warne, MD, MPH - Director of the CEOC

Dr. Donald Warne received his MD from Stanford University and his MPH in health policy from Harvard University as a Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellow in Minority Health Policy. He has served as a Social Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and as a national board member of the American Cancer Society. His work experience is broad and multi-disciplinary and includes primary care medicine, public health, research, health policy, administration, academics, advocacy, and several years as a Staff Clinician with the Phoenix Epidemiology and Clinical Research Branch (PECRB) of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) in Phoenix, AZ, where he conducted intramural diabetes research. Dr. Warne’s connections to PECRB/NIDDK began while working as a laboratory assistant while an undergraduate in the 1980s, and he has received mentorship from numerous outstanding NIDDK researchers over the subsequent decades. Dr. Warne served as PI for two Native American Research Centers for Health (NARCH) grants, including a research project focused on integrative and traditional medicine utilization in an Apache tribe in AZ while he served as the Health Policy Research Director for the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona and a research mentoring project in collaboration with TCs with the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board (GPTCHB). In addition, he has obtained millions of dollars in research and public health grants from HHS agencies and from non-governmental funding sources. The skills attained from this broad base of experience are vital to the success of the interdisciplinary DaCCoTA.

Jacqueline Gray, PhD - Co-Director of the CEOC

Dr. Gray is a Research Professor for the Department of Population Health and the Associate Director for indigenous programs of the Center for Rural Health (CRH) at the University of North Dakota (UND) School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Gray is from Oklahoma and of Choctaw and Cherokee descent. She has worked with tribes throughout Indian Country for over 35 years in the areas of health, education, counseling, and program development. She came to North Dakota in 1999 as a visiting professor in the UND Department of Counseling and joined the Center for Rural Health in 2004. At the CRH, Dr. Gray directs the Seven Generations Center of Excellence in Native Behavioral Health (SGCoE) and the National Indigenous Elder Justice Initiative (NIEJI). She is also principle investigator of the NIEJI Innovation grant, Wac'in Yeya: The Hope Project, and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Outreach Partnership. Dr. Gray began the American Indian Health Research Conference in 2002. She also directs the Native Health Research Team and mentors more than 25 Native students on research in Indian Country.

American Indian Health Research Conference

The 16th Annual American Indian Health Research Conference (AIHRC), which was recently held at UND with welcoming remarks by Dr. Gray, focused on cancer prevention and health promotion research in Indian Country. The keynote speaker was Rodney Haring, PhD, MSW, who is an Assistant Professor of Oncology in the Department of Cancer Health Disparities Research at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, NY.

Contact the DaCCoTA for further information.