Penn's Prevention Research Center received a $6.5 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to evaluate solutions to community health problems, especially cancer.
Penn PRC is a chronic disease research center that focuses on community engagement. With the five-year CDC grant, the center will work with Philadelphia communities to improve communications between doctors and older patients with early-stage breast, rectal, or lung cancer, according to the Penn Medicine announcement.
Leaders of the Center include Karen Glanz, George A. Weiss University Professor with appointments at Penn Med and the School of Nursing; Oluwadamilola Fayanju, professor and chief of the Breast Surgery Division at Penn Med; and Meghan Lane-Fall, who directs the Penn Implementation Science Center.
“I’m excited by this ambitious new core research project, where we’re drawing on the expertise of clinicians and surgeons, geriatrics experts, social work, communication science, psychology, and epidemiology to tackle issues that are especially important to older adults with cancer,” Glanz told Penn Medicine.
Cancer diagnoses are expected to double in adults aged 60 years and older by the year 2040, giving way to 11.5 million new cases. With the grant, Penn PRC will seek to address communication gaps between caregivers and older patients to improve decision making regarding treatment plans and guidelines.
The center's study, titled BEACON, will assess the impact of the Best Case/Worst Case decision-making framework. This tool lays out a strategy for the doctor to articulate a range of potential outcomes in the best case and worst case, as well as the most likely scenarios to the patient. By examining the effectiveness of this framework among more than 500 older adults, researchers will aim to ensure patients’ values align with the type of disease-specific care they receive.
“Our hope is that this project will improve racial and ethnic disparities in shared decision making and guideline-concordant care among older patients with new early-stage cancers,” Fayanju said to Penn Medicine.
The PRC also received a $1.4 million grant from the CDC back in 2016 to develop prevention and management methods for chronic diseases through leadership programming. The center used this grant to ensure a more equitable distribution of resources after discovering that residents in West Philadelphia’s predominantly Black Promise Zone suffered from chronic diseases at much higher levels than the average population.
Leaders and collaborators of Penn PRC come from a variety of backgrounds and specialties.
“We hope to engage, encourage, and motivate scientists, clinicians, students, and community members from many disciplines and perspectives to come together to build healthier communities,” Glanz reiterated.
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