As a National Cancer Institute (NCI)–designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center is involved in community outreach and education activities that integrate all aspects of our basic, clinical, translational, and population research.

Our Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) Core aims to prevent cancer and reduce disparities in cancer care in the communities that we serve in our catchment area. By engaging with our stakeholders, we identify local community needs and implement strategies to translate cancer research into policy and practice.

We focus on the following cancer burdens and disparities in the local communities we serve:

• high incidence of lung, colon, breast, and prostate cancer across all areas and groups
• high rates of microbe-related head and neck, stomach, liver, and colon cancers in Asian, Black, and Hispanic American communities
• increase in triple-negative breast cancer and highly aggressive prostate cancer in Black, Hispanic, and Ashkenazi Jewish communities
• increasing rates of liver, melanoma, pancreatic, and lung cancer

In collaboration with researchers at Perlmutter Cancer Center and the Department of Population Health, our scientific research programs target many of these challenges by developing and testing patient navigation programs and prediction models for identifying and reaching patients who are at high risk for cancer.

COE Leadership

Simona C. Kwon, DrPH, MPH
Leader, COE

Dr. Kwon serves as associate director of community outreach and engagement at Perlmutter Cancer Center, director of the Section for Health Equity in the Department of Population Health, and director of the Integrating Special Populations Unit at NYU Langone’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute. She has extensive experience in the use of community-based participatory research, evidence-based strategies, dissemination and implementation science, and working with multidisciplinary teams to address community-level health disparities.

Chau Trinh-Shevrin, DrPH
Co-Leader, COE

Dr. Trinh-Shevrin is the director for the Division of Health and Behavior and vice chair of research in the Department of Population Health. She is a national leader in health disparities and community-based participatory research and is principal investigator of the New York City Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network Center, which is focused on the dissemination and implementation of research to reduce liver, stomach, colorectal, and human papillomavirus (HPV)–associated cancers.

Joseph E. Ravenell, MD
Co-Leader, COE

Dr. Ravenell is director of Perlmutter Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention Navigation Program. He has served as principal investigator of multiple National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) grant–funded clinical trials to test community-based strategies for colon cancer screening and cardiovascular disease prevention among Black men in urban areas.

Victoria Foster, MPH
Program Director, COE

As a public health practitioner with almost two decades of experience, Ms. Foster’s work has focused on accessible healthcare through the lens of meaningful and sustainable community-clinical linkages. She spearheads strategic planning and implementation for multi-pronged initiatives that address cancer prevention and disparities across clinical and community-based settings with a focus on community-based participatory methods such as iterative consensus-building. She was co-project director for the NYU-CUNY Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network (CPCRN). She manages multiple teams with a strong focus on language access and cultural tailoring as well as community-clinical linkages. Finally, to connect the realities of the lived experiences of our community members to upstream change, she leads the policy workgroup for the NY Regional Cancer Collaborative (NY RCC). The NY RCC is a partnership of the offices of community outreach and engagement from academic and hospital cancer centers in New York (Hebert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center of Columbia University, Mount Sinai, Einstein/Montefiore, NYU Langone, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Weill Cornell, Rutgers, University of Rochester, Stony Brook University, Wilmont Cancer Institute, and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center)

COE in the Community

Perlmutter Cancer Center’s COE is a multipronged, community-engaged initiative that aims to reduce the overall burden of cancer and alleviate cancer-related disparities. The initiative engages local communities to disseminate innovative, evidence-based cancer prevention, early detection, care, and survivorship solutions.

Our cancer prevention efforts focus on obesity, tobacco cessation, and vaccination against and treatment for infection-related cancers. Early cancer detection, timely care, continuity of care, mental health, and social support are critical to improving health outcomes and mental well-being among people with cancer and survivors. Moreover, our work supports policies to prevent cancer and mitigate adverse and disproportionate cancer-related health outcomes. We focus our efforts on reducing the major cancer burdens that stem from breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancers as well as unique and preventable infection-related cancer disparities.

Our project partners include the Department of Population Health, NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn, the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone, and our extensive network of social and health partners. Our goal is for this program to serve as a model initiative that could be replicated in other New York City communities or urban environments around the country.

Most notably, we founded the Perlmutter Cancer Center Community Advisory Board (CAB), a multisectoral group of our partners, to leverage a collective impact model and to collaborate for cancer prevention and care. Our CAB includes leadership from organizations including:

• Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health
• CAMBA
• Center for Family Life
• Brooklyn Center for Quality Life
• Chinese-American Planning Council
• HealthFirst
• SHARE Cancer Support
• Mexican Consulate
• RiseBoro Community Partnership
• Nassau County Department of Health
• Suffolk County Department of Health Services
• NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
• Office of the NYC Public Advocate for Justice, Health & Safety
• Arab-American Family Support Center
• Brooklyn Community Pride Center
• Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York
• SEPA Mujer

and additional local organizations serving communities across our catchment area.

Together, we want to ensure the needs and assets surrounding cancer prevention and unequal access to care in immigrant communities across our catchment area are represented. We are excited to build on this productive partnership to address issues related to the disproportionate burden of cancer we often find in various communities.

Cancer Community Health Resources and Needs Assessment (CHRNA) Community Reports

The purpose of the 2021-2022 Cancer CHRNA survey was to identify factors around cancer disparities and resources available among populations in the NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center’s catchment area (i.e., the lower half of Manhattan and all of Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island).

Throughout the entire process, from early stages to final reports, community-based organizations have played an indispensable role in this process. In the initial stages, CBOs were heavily involved in consensus building and the meticulous data collection in various languages within our communities. Through additional rounds of consensus building, CBOs were able to help us identify critical data for our initial analyses and dissemination, insightfully co-designing reports tailored to organizations and community members.

They contributed immeasurably through their unwavering support and collaborative efforts.

We have compiled detailed reports focusing on Cancer CHRNA data for several communities in Brooklyn, including the following:

• Black and Afro-Caribbean Americans
• Chinese Americans
• Eastern European Americans
• Korean Americans
• Latina/o/e Americans
• South Asian Americans
• SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) Americans
• Traditional Chinese
• Simplified Chinese
• Russian
• Spanish
• Bengla
• Urdu

These reports examine the unique challenges, trends, and needs of each community regarding cancer prevention, incidence, prevalence, and related factors. The reports have been co-developed with our community partners to share back key data and findings to the communities.

For more information about the Perlmutter Cancer Center COE and Stamp Out Cancer, please contact Victoria Foster, MPH, Program Director,
at Victoria.Foster@NYULangone.org.

Beatrice W. Welters Breast Health Outreach and Patient Navigation Program

The Beatrice W. Welters Breast Health Outreach and Navigation Program educates women about breast cancer and the importance of screening. The program also provides personal assistance and guidance in navigating the healthcare system.

Patient navigators identify women who could benefit from breast cancer screening through outreach and educational programs in community venues that women routinely visit. They also help women secure breast health services, including low-cost and free mammograms, and provide them with active support, from diagnosis and treatment to survivorship. The program also provides opportunities for women to access promising new therapies through clinical trials.

For more information about the Welters Program, please call 844-902-9355 or email BeWell@NYULangone.org or see https://nyulangone.org/locations/beatrice-w-welters-breast-health-outre….

Stamp Out Cancer Brooklyn Navigation Program

Stamp Out Cancer Brooklyn Navigation Program helps Brooklyn residents navigate all aspects of cancer care, from prevention to treatment. We also connect people with community support agencies for needs they may have in addition to their health.

Patient navigators provide education and resources on how to prevent cancer. We focus on healthy eating, tobacco cessation, and getting vaccines and treatment that prevent infection-related cancers. Our multi-lingual team also helps people schedule cancer screenings and follow up if more services are needed. Early cancer detection, timely care, continuity of care, mental health, and social support are critical to improving health outcomes and mental well-being among people with cancer and survivors. Moreover, our work supports policies to prevent cancer and mitigate adverse and disproportionate cancer-related health outcomes.

For more information, contact SOCBCommunity@NYULangone.org, or call 718-630-7622.