Research

Yale Cancer Center is committed in supporting research that addresses the specific needs of the communities in our catchment area of Connecticut.

The YCC Catchment Area Research awards were announced in late 2024 to two Yale cancer investigators researching the fundamental cause of, or an effective cure or prevention of, cancer.

• Hermine Poghosyan, PhD, MPH, FAAN, associate professor, Yale School of Nursing, received funding for her project "Examining the Effects of Stigma and Mistrust as Barriers to Lung Cancer Screening Utilization.”
• Guannan Gong, PhD, associate research scientist, who received funding for his project, "Using AI-based Clinical Trial Patient Matching (CTPM) System to Address and Reduce Enrollment Disparities in Therapeutic Clinical Trials in YCC Catchment Area."

Funding for these awards was made possible for a grant from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, with matching funds from the Yale Cancer Center’s Community Outreach program.

In July 2025, Drs. Sanjay Aneja, Ira Leeds, and Shilpa Murthy, were selected to receive the 2025 Pilot Awards, which are specifically designed to support innovative cancer research that aims to address known inequities in the ability to deliver state of the art care to everyone who needs it.

“In support of Yale Cancer Center’s unwavering commitment to ensuring equitable access to cancer care for all of our patients, I am thrilled that three exemplary projects were chosen through a competitive process that included input from several of our community advisors,” said Tracy Battaglia, MD, MPH, professor of medicine (general medicine) and associate director of cancer equity, community outreach and engagement at Yale Cancer Center.

Read more about the three projects that received the pilot awards as well as collaborators of Drs. Aneja, Leeds, and Murthy.

The Community Health Equity Accelerator (CHEA) initiative was launched in 2022 to unite leaders across multiple domains to tackle health equity issues in New Haven and beyond. This initiative brings together diverse experts from community organizations, Yale-affiliated faculty and staff, and health system and hospital leadership to work together and address health issues that have a significant impact on New Haven communities. CHEA was developed to champion community-responsive programs and scholarship that directly address the health needs of New Haven, with an emphasis on health inequity. Each funded cycle focuses on addressing a different community-identified health priority through an evidence-based, multilevel intervention implemented simultaneously at the individual, family, provider, community, and/or health system levels.

In September 2025, the CHEA Guiding Coalition awarded a grant to address disparities in cancer screening rates in New Haven to a coalition of community and academic partners through its Community Health Equity Accelerator initiative. Led by general internist Ilana Richman, MD, MHS, a community-academic partnered research team of staff, practitioners, and faculty from Cornell Scott Hill Health Center and Yale School of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine will receive a pilot award to develop and implement a multilevel community-based intervention to increase completion of outstanding colorectal cancer screening orders.

Learn more about the screening program and the 2024 grant, which was CHEA’s first.