Folasade May
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the United States, yet much of it can be prevented or caught early. Screening only saves lives if every step gets finished.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
colorectal cancer
colonoscopy
fecal immunochemical test
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2029
What they work on
- Compare a multilevel patient, provider and health-system intervention against usual care in a six-clinic cluster randomized trial, measuring colonoscopy completion within 6 months of an abnormal fecal immunochemical test (FIT) at an FQHC.
- Assess the quality and challenges of carrying out the FQHC intervention to learn which parts are feasible and which matter most for colonoscopy follow-up.
- Measure the cost of implementing the FQHC follow-up intervention to judge whether it could spread to other safety-net clinics with low colonoscopy follow-up rates.
- Gather patient, provider and other stakeholder views on a planned intervention for high-risk polyps, identifying barriers to and facilitators of surveillance colonoscopy at UCLA Health.
- Test, in a hybrid effectiveness-implementation cluster-randomized trial, whether a natural language processing-based system that flags high-risk polyp patients and prompts recall raises 3-year surveillance colonoscopy rates, and at what cost.
More about the research
People with a positive stool test need a follow-up colonoscopy. People found to have dangerous polyps need a repeat colonoscopy a few years later. In both groups, many patients never get that next exam. Two clinical trials test multilevel interventions, which act on patients, doctors and health systems together, to close these gaps in real-world care.
Why it matters
Many patients at higher risk of colorectal cancer never complete the colonoscopy that could find and remove cancer or precancerous polyps. This applies especially to low-income patients seen at safety-net clinics and to people with high-risk polyps. Interventions shown to raise follow-up and surveillance rates could change clinical practice. Because the trials also measure cost and implementation, other health centers and health systems facing the same problems could adapt them.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Evaluating a Multilevel Intervention to Increase Colonoscopic Follow-up after Abnormal Stool-based Colorectal Cancer Screening in a Community Safety-Net Setting
NIH · Sep 2024 – Aug 2029
Multilevel health system intervention to increase surveillance colonoscopy for high-risk colorectal polyps
NIH · Aug 2022 – Nov 2027
Closest labs
Sarah Miller
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
Refine the eNav Toolkit, a web app for colorectal cancer screening decisions, reminders, bowel-prep instructions and education, through two rounds of field testing with 10 federally qualified health center (FQHC) patients each.
Devin Mann
New York University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Develop community health worker training modules for remote blood pressure monitoring, plus electronic health record support tools, using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research and user-centered design.
Elena Byhoff
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Measure how a multi-part food insecurity program changes clinical outcomes in Medicaid enrollees with diabetes, hypertension or depression at a federally qualified health center, using a difference-in-difference comparison with two propensity-weighted comparison groups.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
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