NIH targets $50M in grants to study cancer in poverty-stricken areas

The National Institutes of Health awarded $50 million to create five new centers to research how to improve cancer outcomes in low-income areas, officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: Patients in communities where 20% or more of the population has lived below the federal poverty line for the past 30 years often have higher cancer incidence, delays in diagnosis and treatment, and are more likely to die from the disease.

• Called the Persistent Poverty Initiative, this is the first major program to address the factors behind persistent poverty in the context of cancer, officials say.
• The funding will create five new Centers for Cancer Control Research in Persistent Poverty Areas.

Details: Awardees include the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Stanford University, Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University, and the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

• Their centers will be focused on interventions such as reducing obesity, improving nutrition, increasing physical activity, helping people quit smoking and improving living conditions through supplemental income.
• The centers will also help train a pipeline of early-career investigators to work with underserved communities, officials said.