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NYC Health + Hospitals and Mount Sinai’s Arnhold Institute for Global Health Announce Inaugural Winners of Cure-19 Research Grants and Pilot Projects
Sep 29, 2021
NYC Health + Hospitals and the Arnhold Institute for Global Health at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Icahn Mount Sinai) today announced the four inaugural grant awardees of the CURE-19 Research Pilot Projects, an initiative to support collaborative, interdisciplinary COVID-19 research to better understand the novel virus that has transformed health care globally. Each winner will each receive $25,000 to support their research project thanks to funding by the Icahn Mount Sinai.
The CURE-19 Research Pilot Projects will support new COVID-19 research over the next five years, with an emphasis on projects related to disease control for large communities, informatics and decision support systems, addressing structural racism and social determinants of health, translational science research, and evidence-based interventions and policies. The projects will also address the long-term effects of COVID-19, social and environmental determinants of COVID-19, and maternal and child health related to COVID-19.
“Elmhurst is thrilled to collaborate with our colleagues at Mount Sinai to further understand the relationship between COVID-19 and community, clinical, and socio-economic variables,” said NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst CEO Helen Arteaga Landaverde, MPH. “We saw first-hand how terribly impacted our precious community was in the early days and weeks of the pandemic. However, that impact will have lasting effects for decades and generations to come. It is critical, as community healthcare providers, to thoroughly understand these impacts and better adapt our care and support services to those needs.”
“Congratulations to the four inaugural grant awardees of the CURE-19 Research Pilot Projects,” said NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens CEO Neil J. Moore, MBA, MPA, FACHE. “By partnering with our neighboring health institutions, our experts will be able to collect larger samples of information to draw stronger conclusions and correlations that will ultimately help address health needs in these communities, now and in the future.”
“We are excited to fund the first cohort of research studies under the CURE-19 collaboration with NYC Health + Hospitals,” said Dennis S. Charney, MD, the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of Icahn Mount Sinai and President for Academic Affairs of the Mount Sinai Health System. “The pandemic has disproportionately affected vulnerable populations. We must understand the systemic issues in order to address inequities in medicine and provide equitable care that improves health outcomes and enhances pandemic preparedness and response initiatives.”
The inaugural research grant winners and their projects include:
- Environmental Impact on Outcomes: Saadiyah Bilal, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Icahn Mount Sinai, will examine the relationship between neighborhood-level community variables with clinical outcomes and vaccination rates for patients with COVID-19.
- Community Healthcare Workers: Stanley Pierre, MD, MPA Patient Safety Coordinator & Director of Clinical Centers of Excellence Development Program, NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens will examine how community healthcare workers can promote equity in vaccine access and trust to historically marginalized and vulnerable communities.
- Maternal COVID-19 Vaccination: Uday Patil, MD, Director of Neonatology and Newborn Services at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Global Health and Health Systems Design at the Icahn Mount Sinai, will examine the transfer of passive immunity against COVID-19 to newborns after vaccination of mothers in diverse, multiethnic communities often underserved and underrepresented.
- Opioid Overdose During Pandemic: Siri Shastry, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Icahn Mount Sinai, will examine the impact of COVID-19 on risk behaviors of patients with non-fatal opioid overdose in the Emergency Department, while understanding the influence of structural, community, and network factors.
“Congratulations to four of our very own NYC Health + Hospitals providers on winning the inaugural Mt. Sinai Arnhold Institute for Global Health CURE-19 Research pilot project grants,” said Council Member Carlina Rivera, Chair of the Committee on Hospitals. “Over the next five years, Dr. Bilal, Dr. Pierre, Dr. Patil, and Dr. Shastry will spearhead critical research on COVID-19’s impacts on our city, country, and world. I applaud their work and dedication to public health, and look forward to their findings that will ultimately serve our most vulnerable communities.”
The four inaugural research grant winners were required to submit a proposal, which included a project summary or abstract, research description that emphasized its focus and significance, proposed timeline, list of principal investigators and co-principal, and more. The proposals were reviewed by a committee of research leaders from the CURE-19 partner institutions, who scored on criteria including overall impact, significance, innovation, and approach.
The research pilot projects are part of a larger partnership known as the COVID-19 Unit for Research at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst and /Queens (CURE-19), a collaboration between Mount Sinai’s Arnhold Institute for Global Health and NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst Global Health Institute that formed during the initial peak of the pandemic in 2020. CURE-19 translates data, experiences, and lessons from clinicians at the Mount Sinai Health System, NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, and NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens into research to address both the global pandemic and root causes of health disparities in New York City.