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The National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded University of Illinois Cancer Center member Hunter Holt, MD, MAS, a five-year, $1.4 million K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award to support work addressing the delays in care that can happen after an abnormal cervical cancer screening test in uninsured patients served by safety-net health systems. 

The new K08 award builds on a pilot grant he received from the Illinois Cancer Health Research (I-CHER) Center at the Cancer Center, which was made possible by funding from the American Cancer Society (ACS) and Cancer Center support.

Despite having cervical cancer screening rates comparable to insured populations, uninsured populations served by safety-net systems tend to have high rates of cervical cancer incidence and mortality. This is possibly due to multiple barriers, including fragmented care that separates primary care clinics from diagnostic care, which leads to delays in follow-up care.

Over the next five years, Holt will study the factors that affect timely follow-up care, with the goal of identifying barriers to care and developing interventions that improve the quality, accessibility, and timeliness of care for uninsured populations.

This work includes engaging with clinic and health system leaders, providers, and patients to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of interventions and, ultimately, conduct clinical trials. 

A member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at the Cancer Center, Holt is a Family Medicine physician at UI Health, the academic health enterprise at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), which includes the Cancer Center.

The Cancer Center has also supported Holt's other research through an American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant (ACS IRG), which provides seed funding to junior investigators pursuing innovative cancer research.