Friday, May 9, 2025
5/9/2025
Accelerating Cancer Screening - PROJECT ABSTRACT Fiscal Year 2022 Accelerating Cancer Screening, HRSA-22-154 Applicant: Refuah Health Center, Inc; H80CS00281 Address: 728 N. Main Street; Spring Valley, New York 10977 Project Director: Chanie Sternberg, Executive Director Project Director Phone: 845-354-9300 x. 1205 (voice); 845-354-9448 (fax) Email: CSternberg@RefuahHealth.org Website: www.RefuahHealth.org Funding Requested: $500,000 ($250,000/yr), AL/CFDS #: 93.224 Refuah Health Center, Inc. (Refuah) requests $250,000/year in Accelerating Cancer Screening (AxCS) funding to increase equitable access to cancer screening and referral for care and treatment. Funding will allow Refuah to enhance patient education, case management, outreach, and other enabling services within low-income, marginalized communities in Rockland County and rural Sullivan County. Refuah has provided comprehensive healthcare services to low-income New Yorkers since 1992. In 2002 Refuah became a Section 330(e) Health Center Program grantee and currently operates three (3) permanent fix sites in Rockland, one (1) permanent site in Sullivan County and a fleet of five (5) mobile medical units that serve insular communities throughout New York’s lower Hudson Valley. Refuah offers comprehensive primary care services, as well as onsite dental, behavioral health and a broad range of specialty services (podiatry, urology, ophthalmology, etc.) to nearly 80,000 patients annually. Refuah’s target population includes low-income service area residents and families living at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines (FPG) and the un/underinsured. Project Description: Refuah’s AxCS project centers on training a team of locally sourced, culturally, and linguistically responsive navigators (1.5 FTE) and community health workers (1.5 FTE). This support team will be well positioned to make in-roads into the service areas’ hardest to reach and most at-risk communities including Haitian and Hispanic immigrants, ult raorthodox Jews, low-income and rural residents, and aging populations. To further ensure access, Refuah will use a portion of AxCS funding to retrofit a mobile unit (owned and listed on the Center’s Form 5B) to be used as a cancer screening clinic. This mobile screening clinic will travel throughout Rockland and Sullivan County, into geographically isolated or transportation dependent communities and offer accessible, high quality screening services for breast, cervical and colorectal cancers. NCI Partner: To execute the proposed project, Refuah will collaborate with Columbia University Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC), a Nation Cancer Institute (NCI)- designated Cancer Center. Collaborative efforts will develop a team of locally sourced and culturally competent navigators and community health workers to implement a peer-worker model and increase screening rates for breast, cervical and colorectal cancers. Need: The need within the service area is immediate. Cancer screening prevalence fell dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic and remains below pre-pandemic levels. A study published in JAMA Oncology in April 2021 estimated that through July 2020 the disruptions stemming from the pandemic led Americans to miss more than 9 million screenings for breast, colorectal and prostate cancers. Additionally, the total number of cancer screenings received by the CDC’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program declined by 87% for breast cancer and 84% for cervical cancer during April 2020 compared with the previous 5-year averages for that month. Colorectal cancer screening rates dropped nearly 18%. In June 2020, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) projected that pandemic-driven missed screenings would contribute to 10,000 deaths from breast and colorectal cancers. With AxCS funding, Refuah will partner with HICCC to increase screening rates among high-risk populations and, when indicated, connect patients with follow-up referral s within 30 days.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).