4 Corners thinking

Tomorrow morning I will be traveling to Durango to take part in a meeting of academicians and public health professionals representing the “4 Corners” states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.  This meeting leads me to the following reflections about past collaborations between the 4-Corners states.

The meeting tomorrow and Friday is on the topic of colorectal screening programs in our four states, with a particular focus on how well we are reaching Hispanic and Native American populations.  In attendance will be academicians from our four health research universities, state health and local health professionals who are overseeing current screening programs, representatives from the Indian Health Service, and representatives from Hispanic and Native American communities in each of the four states.  In addition, there will be a delegation of about a dozen from the Colorectal Cancer Roundtable, a national organization dedicated to increasing prevention and early detection for colorectal cancer. The Roundtable has been interested in what is going on here in Colorado, so this focused regional discussion is a great way for them to find out that and more.

Collaboration among the 4-Corners states is not a new idea.  When I worked in the Epidemiology Office of the New Mexico Department of Public Health and Environment in the 1980’s, we would travel to Durango once every fall to attend a 4-Corners meeting on chronic diseases, sharing ideas and best practices for chronic disease control.  When I first came to Colorado in the 1990’s, our Cancer Center sponsored a 4-Corners meeting on cancer research.  Out of that meeting came the idea to conduct a collaborative research project on breast cancer among Latinas that was then funded by NCI.  That study (known both as the SHINE Study and also the 4-Corners Breast Cancer Study) has been the largest study ever conducted on risk factors for breast cancer among Latinas.  There are many other examples of collaborations between the 4-Corners states.

There is tremendous power in inter-state regional collaborations of the 4-Corners type.  I am looking forward to tomorrow learning more about what is going on in Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.  We need to find ways better institutionalize regional sharing of ideas and fostering regional collaborations of the 4-Corners type.