The overall goal of the Cancer Prevention and Control (CPC) Program of the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center (AHWFBCCC) is scientific discovery across the cancer continuum—from primary prevention to survivorship—which translates into clinical, community, and policy strategies to improve cancer outcomes.

CPC members reduce the risk of cancer and cancer recurrence through research focused on the determinants of exposure to common carcinogens, ways to reduce risk, and strategies to detect cancer early.

The Program also enhances survivors’ quality of life by conducting surveillance of post-treatment effects of cancer and cancer care delivery research to improve survivorship outcomes. 

As a National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) Research Base, the AHWFBCCC is well-positioned to support multi-center, rigorous cancer prevention and control research in community-based healthcare settings.

Specific Aims:

Aim 1 – Reducing Exposure:
Understand and target the multilevel determinants of exposure to tobacco and other carcinogens. This aim primarily focuses on tobacco, with the additional goal of expanding research on alcohol and environmental exposures. 

Aim 2 – Risk Reduction and Screening:
Develop and promote strategies to reduce the risk of cancer and to improve early detection of cancer. This aim focuses on advancing individual and system-level strategies to mitigate cancer risk and facilitate the early detection and diagnosis of cancer.

Aim 3 – Treatment and Survivorship:
Enhance quality of life and reduce symptom burden for survivors through supportive care. This aim focuses on describing, understanding, and advancing novel interventions to address the adverse symptom burden, functional, and practical impacts of cancer on the lives of patients and their caregivers.

Research Project Highlights: