The current Equity in Access Research Program funding opportunity is now closed. Please check back for future opportunities.
Notification of Full Application Invite November 12, 2026.
Blood Cancer United's Equity in Access Research Program was created to help ensure more equitable access to care for blood cancer patients and survivors.
Through this program, Blood Cancer United aims to generate new evidence that can guide policy reform and changes in healthcare practice, in order to mitigate the impact of social, economic and environmental disadvantages and reduce barriers to care.
For questions, please contact [email protected].
Learn about the RFP, eligibility, key dates, and required downloads.
Learn about our 2026 grantees and their research following this year’s application information.
For applicants
The current Equity in Access Research Program funding opportunity is now closed. Please check back for future opportunities.
Understanding How Health Insurance Affects Equity in Access to Care for Individuals Diagnosed with Blood Cancer
This RFP funds research that advances understanding of how insurance status, type, design, and policy changes create barriers to equitable access to cancer care.
- Identify actionable solutions to address barriers to care
- Support policy reform and healthcare practice changes
- Full details, eligibility criteria, and instructions are available in the RFP
Key dates
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Webinar for prospective applicants
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Deadline to submit Letters of Intent
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Notification of Full Application Invite
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Deadline for receipt of full proposals
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Notification of awards
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Grant start date
Program documents
Request for Proposals and Letter of Intent
Detailed RFP and Letter of Intent instructions for prospective applicants.
Full application guidelines and instructions
Guidelines and instructions for applicants invited to submit a full proposal.
Application templates
Downloadable templates for invited full proposal submissions.
Active Equity in Access studies
Blood Cancer United recently awarded $2.5M in funding for a five-year research grant under the Request for Proposals "Building Evidence for Effective Interventions to Increase Therapeutic Cancer Clinical Trial Accrual: Promoting Access for Patients from Underrepresented Groups"
Recently funded study
A Multilevel Intervention to Improve Enrollment in Clinical Trials Among Adolescents and Young Adults and Older Adults with Blood Cancer
Despite therapeutic advances, adolescents and young adults (AYAs; 15–39 years) and older adults (≥60 years)- particularly those from racially and ethnically minoritized, low-income, and community-treated populations - remain substantially underrepresented in clinical trials. Barriers occur across the care continuum and include failure to identify patients at critical treatment inflection points, fragmented referral pathways between academic and community settings, limited awareness of trials, and inadequate patient navigation and support. These challenges are especially pronounced for hematologic malignancies, which often present urgently and across inpatient and outpatient settings before formal diagnoses are established. Addressing these inequities requires patient-centered, multilevel interventions that are co-designed with affected communities and embedded within real-world clinical workflows.
Aims
- Evaluate the effectiveness of this multilevel intervention approach on clinical trial enrollment among 800 AYAs and older adults treated at Columbia in a three-arm randomized trial.
- Adapt intervention components to three community affiliate sites using mixed methods to incorporate patient and provider preferences and local capacity and organizational context.
- Evaluate intervention effectiveness at affiliate sites using a quasi-experimental design.
Study design
Aim 1 uses a pragmatic, hybrid effectiveness-implementation (Type 1), three-arm randomized trial at Columbia University Irving Medical Center comparing: (A) real-time EHR-based identification of potentially eligible patients using a high-sensitivity algorithm; (B) EHR-based identification plus coordinated patient navigation and support delivered in partnership with Blood Cancer United’s Clinical Trial Support Center (CTSC); and (C) standard of care. The primary outcome is enrollment in a therapeutic blood cancer clinical trial among eligible patients for whom a trial is available. Aims 2 and 3 extend the intervention to Columbia NCORP community affiliates. Guided by PRISM and evaluated using RE-AIM, the study will assess context, implementation, reach, effectiveness, adoption, and sustainability across academic and community oncology settings.
Significance
Leveraging Blood Cancer United's CTSC as a public, centralized resource, this project will generate scalable, equity centered evidence to improve clinical trial access for AYAs and older adults with blood cancers across academic and community oncology settings.
Project investigators
Melissa Beauchemin, PhD
Assistant Professor of Nursing
Columbia University
Justine Kahn, MD, MS
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Barbara Pro, MD
Professor of Medicine (Hematology and Oncology)
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Support for this program provided by
