Despite cutting edge progress in early detection, risk reduction, and prevention, unique contextual and sociocultural factors contribute to higher mortality rates for selected cancers in African-American men and women. Collaborative community engagement and outreach programming strategies that focus on sustainability and grass-roots organizing can inform health risk disparities, build trust, and allow communities to take ownership of their own health needs. This paper describes a successful evidence-based community engagement intervention woven into the social and interpersonal fabric of the African-American community in Charleston, South Carolina. Through the creation of a coalition of community partners that included the state's only National Cancer Institute designated cancer center, collaboratively developed platforms devoted to population-specific preventive interventions for cancer and obesity education, awareness, and research initiatives were implemented within the identified community.
