NCI awards grants to improve cancer outcomes in low-income areas

The National Cancer Institute will provide $50 million in funding over five years to five centers that will research and implement structural changes to prevent cancer and improve outcomes for people in persistent poverty areas. For example, the Acres Homes Cancer Prevention Collaboration led by the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center will work with Black/African American and Hispanic communities in northwest Houston to evaluate interventions to prevent obesity and obesity-related cancer; and the Center for Social Capital led by Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University will work with Black/African American, Caribbean American and Hispanic communities in New York to test how well cancer education and tobacco cessation programs promote multigenerational health.
 
“By involving the community and making the community an essential part of this effort, we are building a sustainable model,” said Shobha Srinivasan, senior advisor for health disparities and health equity in NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. “The idea of structural change then becomes much more built into the system.”