Tracy Battaglia

Dr. Tracy Battaglia is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, and a practicing internist at Boston Medical Center (BMC). She serves as Director of the Women’s Health Interdisciplinary Research Center at the School of Medicine and the Women’s Health Unit, Section of General Internal Medicine, an academic unit devoted to improving the health of women through community and academic partnerships. She is also Director of the Avon Breast Health Initiative at Boston Medical Center, a nationally recognized cancer care coordination program whose longitudinal evaluation database includes nearly 12,000 underserved women. Dr. Battaglia has worked in safety-net settings since 1999 as a primary care physician and cancer health disparities researcher. She has 14 years experience designing, implementing and evaluating community-based programs to reduce delays in care across the continuum of cancer care, from screening through survivorship. She has experience with many methods of research, including comparative effectiveness, qualitative methods, survey research and has worked with large databases on both primary and secondary analysis. She has published nearly 40 original articles related to access to care and quality of care in primary care, with a focus on cancer prevention, patient navigation, and underserved populations. She has received career development awards from both NIH and the American Cancer Society and served as PI on grants from the Avon Foundation, Susan G Komen for the Cure, the Evans Department of Medicine, PCORI, and the NCI. Dr. Battaglia's research interests focus on understanding and addressing disparities in cancer care delivery among minority women as they relate to disparities in cancer outcomes. She has served since 2005 as the co-PI of the Boston Site of the NCI's national Patient Navigation Research Program which recruited over 4000 participants from Boston’s low-income populations accounting for nearly 30% of the data to the national database. Dr. Battaglia is an active member the board of directors to the American Cancer Society, New England Division since 2009 where she currently serves as Chief Medical Officer. She is also the recipient of the 2013 American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award which is supportive innovative partnerships with legal advocates to improve cancer care delivery for low income populations.