Example Research Projects at the MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center
Efren Flores, MD, of the Department of Radiology, has collaborated with the MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center to examine the effects of a patient-centered rideshare program on patients' attendance and timeliness at their MRI appointments. This effort to minimize missed or delayed appointments, especially for those who might face transportation barriers to receiving medical care, such as for people who are unemployed, was part of his ongoing mission to advance health equity in radiology. Similarly, Dr. Flores is currently working to improve access to radiology care at the MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center by utilizing community-engaged research principles and innovative outreach efforts. His current project is focused on increasing lung screening participation and access to smoking cessation clinical trials among the community served by the MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center. Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths, and tobacco usage is the number one cause of preventable deaths in the United States. The overarching goals of this project is to improve lung cancer outcomes through early lung cancer detection and improve the overall health of the community in Chelsea. By doing this, Dr. Flores hopes to reduce disparities and advance health equity related to tobacco use and lung cancer.
Julie Levison, MD, MPhil, MPH, of Primary Care at the Department of Medicine, works with HIV-infected Latino/Hispanic immigrants and their health care providers in Chelsea and the Greater Boston area to develop community-based interventions to overcome non-adherence to longitudinal HIV care.
Sanja Percac-Lima, MD, of Primary Care at the Department of Medicine, has been working with Mass General Cancer Center and implemented patient navigation program to improve cancer care for newly diagnosed cancer patients receiving primary care at the MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center, Revere and Charlestown community health centers.
The All of Us Research Program is designed to better understand the different factors that influence illness and wellbeing. The program aims to serve a research community of one million individuals across the United States and centers equitable representation among participants to more accurately reflect the country’s population. The co-investigators/project leaders for the All of Us Research Program at Mass General are Jordan Smoller, MD, director of the Mass General Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, and Shawn Murphy, MD, PhD, chief research information officer at Mass General Brigham and researcher in the Mass General Department of Neurology. Dean Xerras, MD, medical director of the MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center, helps lead engagement, communication and retention activities for the All of Us Program at the MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center, and Eniola Odukale is the project manager for this initiative at the center. Through this project, investigators hope to increase access to innovative research within the community as well as improve the health of the Chelsea as a whole.
Participants
The Community Research Program at the MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center communicates with more than 200 individuals who work in Chelsea, Revere, Boston and Charlestown. Many of our participants work at Mass General and others work elsewhere with an interest in community research.
These individuals want to connect with the research that is being done in their community either through conducting studies or quality improvement initiatives, learning how to contribute to studies, or learning about local research. Many of these participants lead studies within the departments at the MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center, including:
- Adult Medicine
- Pathology
- Specialtized Services
All of Us Research Program
We are proud to join the New England Precision Medicine Consortium to promote participation in the groundbreaking national research study All of Us.