SCI Equity Impact Research Grant Seed Grant

2024

A $50,000 Cancer Health Equity Seed Grant was awarded to Summer Han, PhD and Heather Wakelee, MD, for their project titled “Socioeconomic and neighborhood factors in risk stratification of second primary lung cancer in California and Hawaii.”

Project summary:

With improved survival over the past decade, the number of lung cancer survivors is rapidly increasing, and they are at high risk of second primary lung cancer (SPLC). However, current SPLC risk stratification models do not include socioeconomic and neighborhood (nSES) factors. This project aims to evaluate the impact of nSES factors on SPLC risk and to assess the added value of incorporating these factors into predicting and stratifying SPLC risk among lung cancer survivors using large, prospective, population-based cohort data based in California and Hawaii and validated using real-world data from the Oncoshare-Lung covering the SCI catchment area. We expect that elucidating the roles of nSES factors in SPLC risk will lead to identifying more equitable implementation of screening programs for lung cancer survivors in California and Hawaii, and the U.S. at large.