More than $6 million in NIH funding will support Prof. Corrina Moucheraud’s global health research.
Corrina Moucheraud, ScD, MPH, associate professor of public health policy and management at the NYU School of Global Public Health (GPH), has received two grants totaling more than $6 million from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. The grants will fund Moucheraud’s research to increase human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in Kenya and Malawi and reduce cervical cancer risk.
Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women globally and disproportionately affects women in low- and middle-income countries. Because most cervical cancer is caused by HPV, vaccination is a critical tool for cancer prevention, particularly in resource-constrained settings with limited access to screening and treatment. Many African countries—including Kenya and Malawi—have introduced national HPV vaccination programs that provide the vaccine for free to preadolescent girls, but uptake thus far has been low.
“There are many different reasons why people do and don’t vaccinate, and vaccine uptake is an increasingly complex challenge worldwide,” said Moucheraud, who is also the co-director of the Global Center for Implementation Science at GPH. “We need research that leans into this complexity, in order to increase HPV vaccination, improve health outcomes, and ultimately eliminate cervical cancer.”
In one project, funded by a $3.1 million, multi-year grant (R37CA272664-01A1) under the NIH’s Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) award program which funds exceptionally promising research, Moucheraud and partners in Africa and the US will study what factors affect HPV vaccine uptake in Kenya and Malawi. The researchers will collect data, including surveys of African parents to better understand why their daughter has or has not received the HPV vaccine. The researchers will then use agent-based modeling—a type of computer simulation that uses artificial societies to predict how people interact and behave—to explore which interventions may be most effective at increasing HPV vaccination in Kenya and Malawi.
“Understanding the many factors that influence whether a girl or young woman receives an HPV vaccine will help us to develop targeted, comprehensive, context-specific strategies that can increase vaccination,” said Moucheraud.
In a second project, funded by a $3 million, five-year grant (U01CA294756-01), Moucheraud and her colleagues will focus on leveraging the power of clinicians in Malawi to improve vaccine uptake. Research shows that when clinicians recommend vaccines to their patients, vaccination increases—but there is little information about how to work with clinicians in low-income countries to do so.
In partnership with investigators in Malawi, as well as the Malawi Ministry of Health, the researchers will work to identify the optimal set of strategies for increasing clinician recommendation of HPV vaccination for girls and young women ages 9 to 24 who are living with HIV.
“This study will provide much-needed insight into ways to promote clinician recommendation of HPV vaccination to the highest-risk girls and young women in the country,” said Moucheraud. “Our approach will look at what combination of interventions leads to the best combination of outcomes. In order to meet the needs of young women globally and protect them from cervical cancer, we need a toolbox of well-designed, well-targeted, and locally contextualized interventions.”