Mount Sinai to Lead a Team Awarded $6 Million to Decrease Disparities in Cancer Clinical Trials
The Health Equity Breakthrough Team includes clinical cancer specialists and experts in the social science components of community health
Mount Sinai researchers have received a grant award to lead a collaborative team of New York institutions in an initiative that addresses disparities in the participation of Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in cancer clinical trials.
Stand Up To Cancer® (SU2C) awarded $6 million to a multi-institutional team, its first team of researchers dedicated to health equity in cancer research.
The team, which has been named the SU2C Health Equity Breakthrough Team, will be led by Nina Bickell, MD, MPH, Professor of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Co-lead of Cancer Prevention and Control for The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai and Director of the Healthcare Delivery Science Core at the Institute for Health Equity Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The team includes doctors and scientists specializing in both social science and clinical research from four New York City institutions that serve some of the most diverse and medically underserved communities in the United States.
“Much of our standard of care in cancer is grounded in research with mostly white populations,” said Dr. Bickell, a renowned researcher in cancer disparities. “Our goal is to figure out how we can change that —in how scientists approach their work, how medically underserved communities can learn more about pioneering cancer research and treatments, and how care delivery systems can make it easier for patients to learn about clinical trials.”
For decades, Dr. Bickell has worked with New York City’s safety-net hospitals, designing and implementing programs that reduce disparities in cancer care and investigating potential causes of underlying inequalities in cancer outcomes. Also on the team is Zorina Costello, DMin, Director of Community Engagement for the Center for Spirituality and Health at Icahn Mount Sinai.
Participation by BIPOC patients in all cancer clinical trials has traditionally been very low. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently reported that only 4 percent of clinical trial participants are Black and 5 percent are Hispanic, despite the fact that minority groups overall in the United States have both the highest death rate and shortest survival times for most cancers.
The team will work with community-based groups and community oncologists in New York City to help engage people from medically underserved communities and try to establish new standards regarding their views on cancer care and research.
The team will focus on three areas. It will work with community organizations to raise awareness about cancer research in communities where people are often told little about the latest breakthroughs in cancer treatment and research. The team will train scientists and doctors to better understand how life circumstances affect the health of certain communities, and the importance of engaging with and including a diverse group of patients in cancer research and clinical trials. It will also explore ways to better inform underrepresented patients about clinical trials, including creating a digital system that will link patients with clinical trials in the New York City area.
In engaging with cancer patients about possible clinical trials in which they might participate, the team will especially focus on breast, prostate, and liver cancers. All three cancers disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minority groups. The combination of these aims—along with the potential broad utilization of the materials and methods developed by the team—represent a breakthrough towards addressing health equity in cancer clinical trials.
Karen Hubbard, PhD, Professor of Biology at The City College of New York, will be co-leader of the team. Team members at the two additional sites are Bruce Rapkin, PhD, Associate Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at the Albert Einstein Cancer Center and professor of epidemiology and population health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Mary Beth Terry, PhD, Associate Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) and professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with 48,000 employees working across eight hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 600 research and clinical labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time—discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 9,000 primary and specialty care physicians and 11 free-standing joint-venture centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek’s® “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals, Best in State Hospitals, World Best Hospitals and Best Specialty Hospitals” and by U.S. News & World Report's® “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals.” The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report® “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll for 2024-2025.
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