Cancer
During the last 30 years the overall U.S. cancer incidence and death rates have declined significantly, the rate of decline is lower in African Americans regarding the top four cancer types including cancer of the lung and bronchus, breast, colorectal, and prostate.
Data from both the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) indicate that both cancer incidence and mortality rates are higher in African Americans and other Blacks (both male and female) than in the other ethnic/racial groups in the U.S. Notably, the overall 5-year cancer survival is also lowest in African Americans and other Blacks. Hence, unfortunately, African Americans and other Blacks suffer disproportionately from the burden of cancer incidence and cancer deaths in the United States, having the lowest five-year survival rates for lung, prostate, breast, colorectal and ovarian cancers.
The trend is nearly identical in colon, lung and ovarian cancers. Multiple factors including biological, genetics, environment, nutrition, education status, socio-economics factors, and lack of access to quality cancer health care continue to play vital roles in these health disparities. Health inequities in this country became evident by the significant number of COVID19-related deaths among African Americans and other minorities during the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Cancer Partnership was formed in 1999 with an initial goal of enhancing cancer research capabilities of Meharry Medical to strengthen its ability to collaborate with VICC Center and to understand and address cancer health disparities in Tennessee. This cancer partnership received its first NCI U54 grant in 2001. In 2011, Tennessee State University was admitted to this partnership to form the Meharry Medical College/Vanderbilt-Ingra Cancer Center/ Tennessee State Univerisity Cancer Partnership (MVTCP).The overarching goal of the partnership is to contribute towards understanding and addressing cancer health disparities in our state-approved oncology clinical trials.
Since 2001, this partnership has been funded continuously by the NCI U54 grant. Our cancer partnership investigators, who have benefited from this funding, have successfully obtained NCI, Department of Defense, and other grants to promote their own research initiatives. To achieve this goal, the partnership supports several full and pilot cancer research projects, which focus on basic, translational, and population research on cancer. The partnership supports research on breast, prostate, and ovarian cancers, cancer immunology, and many other cancerrelated projects.
Past Performance
Research accomplishments have been funded by federal agencies such as the Health Resources & Services Administration, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences,the Centers for Disease Control, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education, the National Center Minority Health/Health Disparities, and the National Human Genome Research Institute. State funding at Meharry includes the Tennessee Department of Health.
