> Our Work > The Work We Fund

2025 Kimberly Clark – PCF Young Investigator Award

Leveraging Lifestyle Medicine to Improve Survivorship for Vulnerable Metastatic Prostate Cancer Survivors at a Large Safety-Net Hospital

Nnenaya Mmonu, MD           
New York University (NYU)

Mentors: Danil Makarov, Stacy Loeb

Description:

  • Metastatic prostate cancer survivors face complex survivorship needs, including poor patient-reported outcomes such as pain, fatigue, emotional well-being, and quality of life, which are exacerbated in underserved communities. 
  • Lifestyle medicine, encompassing physical activity, diet, sleep, stress management, and social connections, remains an underutilized yet critical component of survivorship care, especially for vulnerable populations with limited access to personalized support.
  • Dr. Nnenaya Mnonu’s project will investigate lifestyle-based interventions for people living with metastatic prostate cancer, and especially for those with severely limited or no access to cancer survivorship specialists. 
  • The study will assess patient reported outcomes and six key healthy lifestyle behaviors (physical activity, a plant-predominant diet, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances, and social connections) in patients living with metastatic prostate cancer, to identify potentially modifiable gaps and intervention targets. Semi-structured interviews with patients and healthcare providers will be conducted to identify factors critical and feasible for inclusion in lifestyle-based interventions. 
  • If successful, this project will establish a foundation for lifestyle-focused survivorship programs that can be implemented across safety-net hospitals and other underserved settings, ensuring equitable access to holistic care and improving the quality of life for all metastatic prostate cancer survivors.

What this means to patients: There is a growing need to address the complex survivorship care needs of metastatic prostate cancer survivors who are living longer due to improvements in prostate cancer screening and treatment. Dr. Mnonu’s project will identify assessing patient reported outcomes and lifestyle behaviors in vulnerable survivors of metastatic prostate cancer. This will provide crucial evidence, which is currently nonexistent, to inform the development of patient-centered lifestyle-based interventions.