Strategies:

1. Devote time and resources to relationship building around common goals.
2. Seek out opportunities to engage and participate in partnerships with communities disproportionately impacted by cancer.

Strategies:

1. Explore capacity and appropriateness of collecting gender identity, sexual orientation, and primary language in the Minnesota Cancer Registry System.
2. Expand data collection by Minnesota providers and healthcare systems to include gender identity, sexual orientation, primary language, and race and ethnicity.
3. Advocate for policies that expand data collection by healthcare systems.
4. Disseminate cancer-related data and promote use of Minnesota cancer data resources (Minnesota Cancer Reporting System, Cancer in Focus Minnesota, National Cancer Institute State Cancer Profiles, MN Public Health Data Access Portal).

Strategies:

1. Promote policy and system changes to address the barriers to clinical trial participation.
2. Educate providers, people with cancer, and their care partners about the potential benefits and risks of clinical trial participation.
3. Raise awareness of the clinical trials database.
4. Promote the use of champions for clinical trials within communities underrepresented in clinical research.

Strategies:

1. Train more community health workers.
2. Embed community health workers in the cancer care continuum and train providers about their utility for screening and cancer care.
3. Advocate for expanded health insurance coverage of community health worker navigation roles.
4. Promote enrollment in medical and healthcare certificate/degree programs for individuals from underrepresented populations.

Strategies:

1. Increase access to community support programs and legal services that address the causes of financial toxicity*.
2. Implement programs that establish and maintain medical-legal partnerships.
3. Advocate for policies that protect and expand government benefit programs (i.e. Medicaid, SNAP, General Assistance).
4. Support private sector and nonprofit programs aimed at improving social determinants of health.
5. Expand health insurance enrollment.

*Financial Toxicity is the “detrimental effects of the excess financial strain caused by the diagnosis of cancer on the well-being of
patients, their families and society.” Aakash Desai, Bishal Gyawali. Financial toxicity of cancer treatment: Moving the discussion from acknowledgment of the problem to identifying solutions. EClinicalMedicine. 2020 Mar; 20: 100269.

Strategies:

1. Expand use of telehealth to increase access to cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship services.
2. Leverage AI and machine learning to improve early detection, diagnostic accuracy, risk prediction, and clinical decision-making.
3. Advance use of AI/ML in drug discovery, treatment optimization, and clinical trial design.
4. Promote research and adoption of precision medicine, biomarker-driven care, and bioscience innovations.
5. Support development and deployment of digital tools that engage, educate, and guide individuals across the cancer continuum.
6. Pilot, evaluate, and scale promising technologies, particularly those that demonstrate impact among harder-to-reach populations.
7. Address barriers such as broadband access, language and cultural relevance, digital literacy, and trust in technology.