This $215,546 Project Grant was awarded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under the Minority Health and Health Disparities Research (CFDA 93.307) program. The project aims to evaluate the equity impact and cost-effectiveness of three real-world lung cancer screening strategies: the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) guidelines, the American Cancer Society (ACS) guidelines, and a screening...
This Project Grant award of $801,832 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Trans-NIH Research Support program (CFDA 93.310) supports a multilevel integrated intervention to improve low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) lung cancer screening and smoking cessation among African Americans. The primary objectives are to investigate smokers' and providers' attitudes, knowledge, and experiences with the expanded 2021 USPSTF lung cancer screening recommendations, compare the effectiveness of the...
This Project Grant award, in the amount of $269,942, was provided by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) under the Cancer Research Manpower (CFDA 93.398) federal grant program. The award aims to develop and pilot test a community health worker (CHW) intervention to improve lung cancer screening (LCS) uptake and address disparities in LCS among Black and Hispanic communities served by community health centers. The key products and services to be delivered include: 1) Jointly...
This Project Grant award of $1,958,708.00 from the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Cause and Prevention Research program (CFDA 93.393) supports research to identify the burden and impact of false-positive results from lung cancer screening (LCS) using low-dose computed tomography. The primary objectives are to: 1) Identify attitudes, knowledge, and experiences with false-positive LCS results among patients and clinicians; 2) Determine patient-, exam-, radiologist-, and facility-level...
The University of Utah was awarded a $299,998 Cooperative Agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the federal grant program "Centers for Research and Demonstration for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention" (CFDA 93.135). The 5-year award, which commenced on September 30, 2024, will support the development and implementation of digital health strategies to improve lung cancer screening among safety-net clinics. The grant aims to establish a...
This $238,824 Project Grant award from the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Research Manpower program (CFDA 93.398) aims to optimize treatment decisions and quality-adjusted life years for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) through improved lymph node staging. The primary goals are to: 1) Leverage an ongoing cohort study to determine if endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS) can better detect the extent of cancer spread compared to...
This Project Grant award from the National Cancer Institute (CFDA 93.393 - Cancer Cause and Prevention Research) supports research to identify interception targets in persistent lung premalignant lesions (PMls) and investigate the effects of prevention agents on persistence pathways. The $566,523 project, awarded to the University of Colorado-Denver, aims to shift lung cancer prevention research towards a precision approach focused on intercepting PMls most likely to progress to carcinomas....
This $602,315 Project Grant award from the National Cancer Institute (CFDA 93.393 - Cancer Cause and Prevention Research) will support research to validate a novel mouse model of lung squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) premalignancy and use it to screen and test lung cancer prevention agents. The key objectives are to: 1) Define the human relevance of the in vivo NTCU/smoke mouse model of lung SCC premalignancy, 2) Validate an ex vivo precision cut lung slice approach to screening new prevention...
The U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a $158,290 Project Grant under the Cancer Cause and Prevention Research program (CFDA 93.393) to Kaiser Foundation Hospitals to conduct a study on "Estimating Overdiagnosis After Implementation of Lung Cancer Screening in Community-Based Healthcare Systems." This 2-year project, running from July 2024 to July 2026, aims to produce estimates of overdiagnosis among patients diagnosed with lung cancer who participated in lung cancer...
This federal Project Grant award of $932,740.00, awarded on September 16, 2024 by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (CFDA 93.307 - Minority Health and Health Disparities Research), supports a research study by the Morehouse School of Medicine to determine racial disparities in lung cancer treatment and survival outcomes for Black non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients compared to White NSCLC patients. The study aims to 1) document any differences in receipt of...
POPULATION HEALTH MANAGEMENT APPROACHES TO INCREASE LUNG CANCER SCREENING IN COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS - LUNG CANCER IS THE LEADING CAUSE OF CANCER-RELATED MORTALITY IN THE U.S., ACCOUNTING FOR APPROXIMATELY 1 IN 5 CANCER-RELATED DEATHS. APPROXIMATELY 80% OF LUNG CANCERS ARE ATTRIBUTABLE TO CIGARETTE SMOKING. ANNUAL LOW- DOSE COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY SCREENING FOR LUNG CANCER (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS LUNG CANCER SCREENING OR LCS) IS RECOMMENDED BY THE U.S. PREVENTIVE SERVICES TASK FORCE (USPSTF). DESPITE EVIDENCE OF EFFECTIVENESS AND THE USPSTF RECOMMENDATIONS, IMPLEMENTATION OF LCS INTO CLINICAL PRACTICE HAS BEEN EXCEEDINGLY LIMITED, WITH ONLY 6.5% OF ELIGIBLE INDIVIDUALS SCREENED IN 2020, AND THERE ARE MAJOR HEALTH INEQUITIES IN LCS RELATED TO RACE/ETHNICITY AND SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS. THE LONG-TERM GOAL OF THIS PROGRAM OF RESEARCH IS TO INCREASE THE REACH OF LCS AT SCALE AMONG LOW RESOURCE HEALTHCARE SETTINGS AND POPULATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN HISTORICALLY MARGINALIZED. THE PROPOSED PROJECT, LUNGSMART UTAH, IS A TWO PHASE, SEQUENTIAL MULTIPLE ASSIGNMENT RANDOMIZED TRIAL (SMART) CONDUCTED IN UTAH COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS (CHCS). UTAH HAS 14 CHC SYSTEMS WITH 50 PRIMARY CARE CLINICS. EACH OF THE UTAH CHCS ARE FEDERALLY QUALIFIED HEALTH CENTERS, PROVIDING COMPREHENSIVE PRIMARY CARE TO >160,000 PATIENTS ANNUALLY. UTAH CHC PATIENTS ARE: 50% LATINO, 8% NATIVE AMERICAN, 38% BEST SERVED IN A LANGUAGE OTHER THAN ENGLISH, 61%4). LUNGSMART UTAH IS GUIDED BY A COMPREHENSIVE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND IS DESIGNED TO DIRECTLY ADDRESS LCS IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES TO ENSURE EQUITABLE IMPLEMENTATION AND REDUCE HEALTH INEQUITIES. LUNGSMART UTAH UTILIZES A POPULATION HEALTH MANAGEMENT (PHM) FRAMEWORK, IN WHICH SCALABLE, ACCESSIBLE, AND SUSTAINABLE TELEHEALTH INTERVENTIONS ARE USED TO ENGAGE PATIENTS IN LCS. PHASE 1 OF THE SMART LEVERAGES UBIQUITOUS TECHNOLOGIES TO ENABLE CHC PATIENTS TO BE ASSESSED FOR LCS ELIGIBILITY, ENGAGE IN SHARED DECISION MAKING (SDM) IF ELIGIBLE, AND BE REFERRED FOR LCS. PHASE 2 OF THE SMART TESTS TELEHEALTH INTERVENTIONS DESIGNED TO ADDRESS LOGISTICAL BARRIERS AND HESITANCY AROUND COMPLETING LCS AMONG REFERRED PATIENTS. LUNGSMART UTAH LEVERAGES SMARTPHONE/INTERNET TECHNOLOGIES WHEN AVAILABLE, AND ALSO SUPPORTS PATIENTS WHOSE ONLY TELEHEALTH CONNECTIVITY IS A CELLPHONE. A CENTRALIZED "HUB" ENABLES ELIGIBILITY ASSESSMENT, SDM WITH CLINICAL DECISION SUPPORT, SCREENING REFERRAL, AND SCREENING LOGISTICS ASSISTANCE AT SCALE TO HELP OVERCOME NUMEROUS SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH THAT IMPACT LOW RESOURCE SETTINGS AND HISTORICALLY MARGINALIZED POPULATIONS. ALL STUDY PROCEDURES AND INTERVENTIONS WILL BE CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH OR SPANISH BASED ON THE PATIENT'S PREFERRED LANGUAGE. IN SUM, LUNGSMART UTAH WILL BE CONDUCTED IN A REAL-WORLD CONTEXT ACROSS MULTIPLE, INDEPENDENT HEALTHCARE DELIVERY SYSTEMS WITH LIMITED RESOURCES (I.E., CHCS) AND AMONG HISTORICALLY MARGINALIZED POPULATIONS (I.E., LOW SES, RURAL, LATINO). LUNGSMART UTAH WILL PROVIDE A CRITICAL EVIDENCE-BASE FOR THE LARGE-SCALE IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERVENTIONS DESIGNED TO REDUCE HEALTH INEQUITIES IN LCS AT CHCS AND OTHER LOW RESOURCE SETTINGS NATIONWIDE.