Global Health Innovation Meets Implementation

Matt Asare, Ph.D., is putting cervical cancer screening research into practice in low- and middle-income countries, where women are six times more likely to develop cervical cancer than in other nations. 

Asare, an assistant professor of social and behavioral health science in the department of public health in Baylor’s Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences, received a five-year, $2.5 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cooperative Agreement Award in partnership with Dorcas Obiri-Yeboah, Ph.D., at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and Nadia Sam-Agudu, M.D., at the University of Minnesota Medical School. 

This cooperative grant focuses on implementing interventions developed in his previous study, in which Asare demonstrated that the home-based, self-sampling for cervical cancer toolkit he developed, paired with a preventive health communication plan, significantly increased cervical cancer screenings for women living with HIV in Ghana.

Now, Asare and his colleagues are seeking to maximize the success of the Home-based self-sampling for cervical cancer Prevention Education (HOPE) intervention by involving more participants in multisite, secondary-level hospital facilities. They are training healthcare providers at those facilities to provide screenings and treatment and facilitating the integration of cervical cancer toolkits into broader healthcare or organizational systems, ensuring they are used effectively and sustainably in Ghana. To do this, the team will leverage existing relationships with health facilities in Ghana, where they will develop and adapt implementation strategies for HOPE.

“This new grant will provide funding to continue the implementation of the cervical cancer prevention toolkit that was developed under the first grant, enabling the scope of the cancer prevention project to grow,” Asare explained. “In essence, the new grant allows us to move from the development phase to practical, real-world application, evaluation and refinement, ensuring that the cancer prevention toolkits we developed are effectively implemented and making a meaningful and lasting impact.”