A Story on Growing our Own: Highlighting Kate and Cancer Screening Initiatives
- Sage Milne
- May 25
- 2 min read
Every year, Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health (CERH) welcomes a group of summer research assistants, ranging from high school to university, who are challenged with developing innovative solutions for promoting health in rural communities. Emerging issues such as an aging population, economic uncertainty, and emergency department closures - all of which contribute to health outcomes – are confronted.
About Kate Maloney
Support is given to young students to lead the way on strategies to support rural areas. Kate Maloney was welcomed in the Summer of 2025 as a Business Development Officer. She grew up in Seaforth and just finished her first year in Business and Aviation at the University of Western Ontario. Her role encompassed assisting with administrative tasks, developing knowledge mobilization materials, and writing grants.
In this role, she was inspired to submit Gateway CERH for the MaRS Innovation Challenge, a nationwide initiative led in partnership with the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS). The challenge is designed to identify and support innovative, community-driven solutions that will increase cancer screening participation across rural and remote communities.
Solution Building for Cancer Screening
Cancer is the leading cause of death with 1 in 4 Canadians anticipated to die from the disease. The most common forms of cancer being breast, lung, prostate, and colorectal cancer. There are inequities that exist with cancer resources across Canada.
Rural and remote communities face many challenges with Cancer care ranging from lack of access to a primary care provider, limited community and social supports for survivors and financial burdens for travelling further to access treatment (Canadian Cancer Society, 2023). This presents a critical challenge for rural health. To that end, Gateway Centre of Excellence in Health strives to promote the health and quality of life of rural residents through research, education, and communication.
Gateway CERH succeeded as a top five finalist for the MaRS Cancer Screening and Innovation Challenge. Gateway CERH has implemented Cancer Screening efforts in all projects. Learn more about some of the projects that have implemented Cancer Screening:
All the best to Kate Maloney as she continues to achieve great things! Gateway CERH will continue to support and drive innovation for rural health promotion. We are continuing to promote Cancer Screening in all of our project initiatives.
About Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health
Founded in 2008 in the community of Seaforth, ON, Gateway CERH is a not-for-profit rural health research organization run by a community-based volunteer board of directors. Gateway CERH's main mission is to better the health and quality of life of rural residents through research, education and communication. Learn more on the Gateway CERH website at: https://www.gatewayruralhealth.ca/ and follow on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube
Comments