On Wednesday, I was privileged to open the "Symposium on State-of-the-Science Health Communications" sponsored by NCI's Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. The meeting featured fascinating insights and research highlights presented by principal investigators from the four Centers of Excellence in Cancer Communication Research (CECCR) that are funded by NCI. They are making substantial and encouraging advances in the science of health communications. The science of communication is important to researchers in other Institutes as well as NCI, and the opportunity to learn what these four Centers of Excellence were accomplishing attracted many members from other NIH institutes.

The importance of bringing evidence to the practice of communications has never been more important than it is now. Reflective of that, NCI's research portfolio in this area is roughly $20-25 million per year, a worthwhile investment in developing a better understanding of the optimal ways to communicate with our patients, health care providers, policy-makers, and the public.

As I have worked with community cancer centers over the past three years, I have become very aware that we still need to know a lot more about how to bring our messages to the public - whether on tobacco use cessation, the importance of cancer screenings, or how to help our patients navigate through the complexities of the terrible diagnosis of cancer and the therapies that go with it.

I want to thank Bob Croyle, Brad Hesse, Linda Harris and the many contributors and NCI staff members, along with the CECCR scientists, who put together the excellent and informative symposium. We have vigorously responded to the communications mandate of the National Cancer Act. But we still have a lot of work to do.

John