Ira Leeds, MD, MBA, assistant professor of surgery (colon and rectal surgery) at Yale School of Medicine (YSM), has received a five-year, more than $3 million Veterans Affairs (VA) Career Development Award-2 (CDA-2) to study how psychosocial risk factors contribute to complications following major cancer surgery among veterans.
Leeds's project, "Assessing the Impact of Psychosocial Risks Among Veterans on Complications of Major Cancer Surgery," will use artificial intelligence to identify psychosocial risk factors before surgery and evaluate a wraparound nurse navigation model designed to connect patients with targeted support services.
"This research taps into a relatively new vein of thinking in surgical risk reduction research that recognizes who we are is as important as what we are," Leeds says.
More than 30% of patients experience complications after major cancer surgery, which can affect quality of life and long-term outcomes. Previous research has shown that patients with multiple psychosocial risk factors—including housing instability, food insecurity, mental health conditions and other social challenges—face substantially higher odds of postoperative complications. However, it remains unclear which of these risks are most strongly associated with poor surgical outcomes and which can be effectively addressed before surgery.
Leeds’s study will use existing VA data to find which psychosocial factors are most linked to perioperative complications and prepare for future interventions to lower surgical risk among veterans. The project builds on Leeds's earlier research showing that addressing psychosocial risk factors can reduce related postoperative complications by up to 50%.
The CDA-2 provides protected research time and resources over five years, supporting Leeds at 50% effort as he advances this work. His primary mentor on the award is Amy Justice, MD, PhD, Peter N. Herbert Professor of Internal Medicine (General Medicine) and professor of public health at YSM. In addition to his faculty appointment in Yale's Department of Surgery, Leeds is a Clinical Fellow in the Clinical Epidemiology Research Center within the VA, and a member of the Yale Cancer Center. His research focuses on identifying and optimizing modifiable risk factors to improve outcomes for patients undergoing abdominal surgery.