Lance Armstrong Foundation awards grant to UPMC Cancer Centers

To address the barriers that African Americans experience when accessing cancer care, UPMC Cancer Centers has been awarded $50,000 from the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The grant will enable health care professionals at the Hillman Cancer Center to understand more about how they can better meet the needs of African Americans with cancer.

According to Joyce Grater, PhD, principal investigator of the grant and program coordinator at the Hillman Cancer Center, some of the barriers experienced by African American patients are the lack of  transportation to and from treatment, problems with housing, and the lack of health insurance. 

To learn more about these and other barriers, the grant will be used to create a database to document and track the experiences of African American patients treated at the Hillman Cancer Center. Specialized care facilitators, or patient navigators, will be trained to resolve barrier-related problems by working closely with patients to meet their needs over a two-year period. Patient navigators will provide patients with emotional support, assistance navigating the health care system, and help accessing community resources.

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