Abstract B113: Cultivating transdisciplinary collaboration for cancer disparities: A phased evaluation and adaptive curriculum design

Abstract Addressing persistent cancer disparities necessitates strong transdisciplinary collaboration. Our program, Research and Community Scholars within the Community and Cancer Science Network at the Medical College of Wisconsin, was designed to train community members and biomedical researchers in effective partnership. This abstract details the developmental evaluation and adaptive redesign of our curriculum across four cohorts, highlighting key learnings and their impact on program evolution. We developed a 9-month curriculum for community scholars and research scholars (basic science and clinical fellows) focusing on cancer disparities, social determinants of health, and interdisciplinary communication. The program utilizes didactic and experiential learning, culminating in collaborative projects. Through a human-centered design approach, we continually evaluated the curriculum's impact using pre/post-assessments, qualitative reflections, and leadership team observations. Insights from each cohort informed successive programmatic adaptations, focusing on curriculum depth, in-person engagement, project clarity, and relationship building. Across four cohorts (n=45 enrolled, n=35 completed), we observed significant evolution in scholar engagement and program outcomes. Cohort 1 2021-2022 (Virtual): Identified a need for deeper curriculum content. Cohort 2 2022-2023 (First In-Person, n=6-8): Showcased improved scholar tone, deeper personal and professional growth, and sustained relationships, enhanced by strong peer engagement and a smaller cohort size. Cohort 3 2023-2024: Scholars deepened their understanding of cancer disparities' "why" and reframed approaches to be more human-centered. While projects had richer content and scholars felt more empowered, challenges emerged regarding project purpose clarity, high scholar dropout, and interpersonal conflicts, signaling a need to improve the scholar experience. Cohort 4 2024-2025 (Project Overhaul): An iterative redesign, informed by human-centered design tools and an "Emergent Learning Table," led to a new "transdisciplinary design process." This fostered greater real-world application and understanding of community-academic partnerships, reducing emphasis on the project as merely a deliverable. However, this cohort experienced the highest turnover rate (∼50%) and challenges with unclear expectations and uneven effort in larger groups, hindering desired deeper relationships across the entire cohort. Our collaborative process demonstrates that while the core curriculum content is robust, effective transdisciplinary collaboration training requires continuous adaptation, particularly in fostering relationship building and formalizing structures to support full, equitable engagement. Future iterations will focus on clarifying the transdisciplinary design process upfront, setting explicit expectations for group work, and building consistent opportunities for deep scholar-to-scholar and scholar-to-leadership relationships to enhance accountability, retention, and a safe learning environment. Citation Format: Jayme Ewens. Cultivating transdisciplinary collaboration for cancer disparities: A phased evaluation and adaptive curriculum design abstract. In: Proceedings of the 18th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities; 2025 Sep 18-21; Baltimore, MD. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2025;34(9 Suppl):Abstract nr B113.