Boston-based Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will lead 12 other health systems and academic institutions across the U.S. in a new cancer consortium aimed at addressing health equity and survival rates among pediatric populations.
Dana-Farber detailed the consortium — called IGNITE — in a Sept. 26 news release.
Here are five things to know:
- IGNITE is the first national, pediatric hematology-oncology health equity consortium in the U.S. Its goal is to "eradicate" health inequities for children with cancer or blood disorders. Children who come from lower-income households have lower cancer survival rates, even when enrolled in clinical trials at top academic institutions.
- The consortium will evaluate and develop community-based health equity interventions.
- "We're building the infrastructure necessary to address these inequities and change the landscape of pediatric cancer care for the better," Kira Bona, MD, pediatric oncologist at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorder Center, said in the release. Dr. Bona is also a founding member of IGNITE.
- Dana-Farber is the consortium's lead site. The other institutions involved are:
- Dissemination and Implementation Science Center at UC San Diego
- Columbia University Irving Medical Center (New York City)
- Cancer and Blood Disease Institute at Children's Hospital Los Angeles
- Seattle Children's Hospital
- University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Cincinnati Children's Hospital
- Children's Hospital Colorado (Aurora)
- Yale School of Medicine (New Haven, Conn.)
- Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford (Palo Alto, Calif.)
- UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals (Oakland and San Francisco)
- University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas)
- Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
- IGNITE is planning to launch two studies later this year. One will address the unmet social needs of children with cancer. The other will test care interventions geared toward low-income families.