Objective: How to use systems thinking to identify and promote diverse partnerships to advance specific goals and strategies to reduce cancer risk.

The strength of a state’s cancer coalition and its impact in advancing specific goals and strategies to reduce cancer risk are dependent on the composition and engagement of its organizational and individual partners. This module guides states that may be at the beginning of their journey to integrate environmental and occupational carcinogen reduction into their comprehensive cancer control plans.  

One of the first steps is to broaden the base of partners who can engage and support the array of needs to identify and implement environmental and occupational cancer risk reduction strategies. Many coalitions are familiar with the Nine Habits of Successful Comprehensive Cancer Control Coalitions. This module utilizes the thinking of Habit #3: Value-Added Collaboration and addresses the need to expand cancer coalition partnerships and collaborations that add value to the design and implementation of environmental and occupational cancer risk reduction goals and strategies.   

Although this module focuses on supporting existing and new partnerships and collaborations, all subsequent modules also reinforce this topic as it relates to the content addressed, e.g., identifying specific environmental/occupational cancer concerns (Module 2), interpreting the scientific evidence (Module 3), designing and implementing evidence-informed interventions (Module 4); addressing environmental injustices and health disparities (Module 5); and state case examples (Module 6), all of which emphasize the importance of new partners.