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SALT LAKE CITY — Laraine Days smoked a pack a day when she came across a Facebook ad for a clinical trial at the Huntsman Cancer Institute seeking participants that needed help to quit smoking.
After finding out she qualified to be a participant, Days started treatment and drastically reduced her smoking to only one pack a month.
"I’ve been trying to quit smoking for the last year," Days said. "I've been smoking for 25 years, and I've progressed to where I could quit for sure."
The treatment Days received is part of the new Center for HOPE at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which had its grand opening Tuesday. The new center functioned at partial capacity over the last several months.
Officially the Center for Health Outcomes and Population Equity, the research center focuses on discovering new ways to prevent and treat cancer among underserved populations, including LGBTQ individuals, people living in poverty and rural residents. The center will collaborate with federally qualified health centers across Utah to provide them with their research findings, hoping to help those facilities make changes to benefit their patients.
"It’s the ability to have some of the great work that happens in the Huntsman to be taken out to the community," said David Wetter, director of the Center for HOPE. "We’re hoping we’ll actually be able to reduce the prevalence of risk factors for cancer across the entire state of Utah, and ideally, the entire Mountain West."
Wetter said people living in poverty, the uninsured and people on Medicaid are least likely to benefit from medical advances in treatment, surgery and new medications.
"We have lots of (treatments) that work," Wetter said. "Unfortunately they rarely get to the people who most need them. Smoking in particular has become increasingly concentrated in folks with lower level of income, and it’s often hard to reach those populations."
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute donated $9.7 million to the Center for HOPE to fund the clinical trial Days participated in, which is seeking new approaches to help people stop smoking.
Days said her overall experience was great because of the friendly staff and the personal attention they provided. She said they helped her to learn how to keep her mind busy and give herself something to do other than smoking.
"Crocheting was a big thing that I started to get into," Days said. "And then, of course, they offered me the patch to help with the replacement of nicotine, and I think it’s helped."
Jen Taggart, a research assistant with the Center for HOPE, meets with participants, runs their visits, gives them tips and helps them with equipment.
"There’s a big disparity when it comes to smoking rates in populations that are underserved," Taggart said. "There’s a real need to understand how we can help these communities better, so there’s a massive public health impact to what we’re doing."
Cho Lam, a research associate professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine, helped brainstorm the idea for the new center in December 2016 and worked with other leadership heads to put together a contextual plan.
"We needed a place where we can see our community participate," Lam said.
"We’re hoping we’ll actually be able to reduce the prevalence of risk factors for cancer across the entire state of Utah, and ideally, the entire Mountain West." — David Wetter, Center for HOPE director
Wetter said group rooms in the new center can serve for orientation sessions for potential patients as well be used by meditation groups doing yoga. In the counseling rooms, the patients will be able to do computer administered tasks, meet with genetic counselors and receive information on quitting tobacco and better dietary practices.
In another room for faculty, Wetter said, "we can spin out blood, store it in freezers for later processing to look at potential biomarkers of risk of cancer progression, of genetic vulnerabilities and more."
Wetter said the new center is based on work he and other staff did in Texas at another cancer research center.
"My very first faculty job many years ago I was blown away by the poverty I saw in our patients, and so that lead to a focus on those living in poverty and the uninsured, and it’s grown from that point," he said.
Wetter said the Center for HOPE’s lab will primarily focus on researching cancer risk factors, including tobacco, diet, physical activity and genetic signatures.
Rebecca Stoffel, a clinical research coordinator for the Center for HOPE, said her team is currently running smoking cessation studies.
"We couldn’t be happier to have this space," Stoffel said. "Our participants love the change."
