NYU To Study Cancer In Blacks With $3M Grant
NEW YORK - The NYU Health Promotion and Prevention Research Center (NYU PRC) at the NYU School of Medicine announced it has received a $3.2 million award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish a Comparative Effectiveness Research Program focused on hypertension and colorectal cancer health disparities in African-American men in New York City. The NYU PRC is one of only four of the 37 PRC research facilities nationwide to receive this prestigious award. The program will build upon the center’s commitment to build and enhance community capacity for health promotion and disease prevention across diverse populations in New York City.
The study will be led by R. Scott Braithwaite, MD, associate professor, Department of Medicine; Joseph Ravenell, MD, assistant professor, Department of Medicine; Mariano Rey, MD, principal investigator of the NYU PRC and director of the NYU Institute of Community Health and Research; and Chau Trinh-Shevrin, DrPH, assistant professor, Department of Medicine. The multidisciplinary research team will also include NYU Langone faculty investigators, the NYU School of Medicine’s Division of General Internal Medicine, NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and the NYU College of Nursing. A diverse group of community-based and faith-based organization partners are also involved in this program.
“Addressing health disparities is a top priority for NYU, and this grant teams up our outstanding leaders in comparative effectiveness research with our superb Health Promotion and Prevention Research Center, working closely with community partners, to tackle some of the most important public health issues among African-American men.”said Vivian S. Lee, MD, PhD, MBA, senior vice president, vice dean for science and chief scientific officer. “We are thrilled that the NYU PRC was recognized for being able to bring fresh scientific approaches to critical disease prevention and control issues, and that we are one of only four centers to receive this award from the CDC.”
Established in 2009, the NYU PRC was made possible by a five-year, $4.1 million grant from the CDC. Under the leadership of Dr. Rey, the NYU PRC’s mission is to bring together the unique talents of faculty and staff across several institutions, along with a wide variety of community partners, to accelerate improvements in population health. To achieve this goal, the NYU PRC conducts a core research project to develop, implement, and test community health-worker programs for diabetes prevention in diverse communities of New York City. NYU PRC’s core research project, titled Project RICE (Reaching Immigrants Through Community Empowerment), aims to reduce diabetes in recent Asian-American immigrants to New York City.
In 1984, the CDC’s Prevention Research Center program was authorized by Congress as a network of academic health centers to conduct applied public health research. Today, the CDC supports 37 centers associated with schools of public health or medicine throughout the country. Each center conducts at least one core research project with an underserved population that has a disproportionately large burden of disease and disability. PRCs involve community members, academic researchers, and public health agencies in finding innovative ways to promote health and prevent disease.
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