From:

UCLA Hospital

757 Westwood Plaza

Los Angeles, California

June 6, 2021

 

To:

Name of Organization

Address or Street

Physical Location

Subject: Request for Funding

 

Dear Mr./ Ms. (Surname),

The Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center would like to request your organization to fund its research project with $45,000 for one year.  We want to conduct a faith-based cancer screening project in Brazil. This project is in line with the mission of our organization which is to deliver leading-edge patient care, research, and education.

 

The UCLA hospital conducted a pilot study in South Los Angeles from June 2016 to June 2018 (Maxwell et al., 2019). The aim was to assess how intervention by community health advisors can promote cancer screening and how the locals would react to screening interventions. The study demonstrated that research protocols could be implemented if there is good fidelity. This research is in line with our mission which is to provide education to the community. Through this project, health educators will be trained to educate the people in their churches on cancer and provide counseling to congregants about cancer screening. Besides, the pilot study conducted in South Los Angeles was to help reduce the burden of cancer through screening. African Americans are more likely to develop cancer than most racial or ethnic groups.  Cancer is the leading cause of death among African Americans, with lung, colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer taking the lead (Maxwell et al., 2019). We aim to engage in a community-based project where we provide capacity building for the church to engage in cancer screening and assist community health educators in identifying community members who have not been screened and then providing them with counseling.  The funding will enable us to train health educators, conduct cancer screenings and follow-ups on those affected, and organize community health conferences.

 

There is a disproportionate burden of cancer among the African American population. The African American community has faced marginalization and mistreatment when it comes to biomedical research (Maxwell et al., 2019). Therefore, working with the church through church academic partnerships is essential and holds promise in the fight against cancer. Many ethnic populations accept church-based programs, and several churches are dedicated to improving the overall health of their members. Brazil is an area highly populated with African Americans, and 16.2 million people live below the poverty line. Poverty affects healthcare behavior; many of these people have never had mammography since conception.

 

We aim to target the local people in Brazil, especially the men and women above 16 to 65 years old. The program will be conducted in Sao Sebastiao Cathedral for one year. We aim to partner with the church to help in capacity building to promote cancer screening. We will hold health conferences monthly to give an update and results of the project. We intend to train community health advisors to recruit participants and assess their participants' adherence to screening guidelines for various screening tests. Also, they will identify people who do not adhere to the screening tests and provide counseling on the tests as needed.  An essential step is to ensure that an institutional review board approves our assessment instruments. The intervention strategies being taught to the CHAs are not complex or challenging to learn.

 

This project aims to promote cancer screening among people in high-risk areas. High-risk areas, in this case, refer to areas with a considerable number of African American population and where the poverty index is high. We are open and ready to address any further questions you may have for us regarding this project.

 

Thank you so much for your assistance and consideration regarding this request. We look forward to your kind response.

 

Sincerely,

…

(Signature)

 

 

Reference

Maxwell, A. E., Lucas-Wright, A., Santifer, R. E., Vargas, C., Gatson, J., & Chang, L. C. (2019). Promoting cancer screening in partnership with health ministries in 9 African American Churches in South Los Angeles: an implementation pilot study. Preventing chronic disease, 16, E128.