Cancer Patients Alliance’s (CPA) mission is to establish relationships of trust with under-resourced patients including low-income Latinos, farm workers and immigrant populations in Monterey County, California – that ensure for them access to decent cancer treatment and care for this, the most frequent cause of death in Latinos. Through its programs including the Salinas Valley Alliance for Cancer, the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine (with Stanford University School of Medicine), and the Salinas Valley Alliance for Cancer Care Equity, CPA advocates for those with cancer, addressing social determinants of health and helping provide remedy.

CPA represents the disenfranchised of us in CA’s Salinas Valley (low-income Latinx farmworkers) while offering credibility of a world-renowned Science Board. Cancer is the main cause of death among Latinxs. Yet for Salinas Valley’s large low-income, Latinxs, farmworker, immigrant, indigenous population no cancer treatment exists locally. This project expands dialog and builds power for patients and providers to co-create solutions. Strategies will elevate voices, including a Patients’ Voices Video with compelling stories on the local healthcare system’s lack of cancer care and increase community support to strengthen healthcare providers’ ability to join in policy change.

CSHE program has helped Cancer Patients Alliance (CPA) sharpen its focus in terms of policy change. This has taken the form of advocating for local health system transformation, which involves power building, loudly highlighting community interest, storytelling through our Patients’ Voices Video, lobbying, cultivating affiliations, and tackling systemic barriers.