A clinician-led coalition closing the gaps in anal dysplasia and anal cancer care. Our first chapter launched in New York. The work is built to travel.
ASSETS is a working coalition of clinicians, researchers, health systems, and community organizations building the infrastructure that anal cancer prevention has never had: shared referral pathways, a trained workforce, coordinated research, and public resources written for the people who actually need them.
The short version. Anal cancer is one of the fastest-growing cancers in the United States, and it is not evenly distributed. Gay and bisexual men, trans women, people living with HIV, and immunocompromised patients face dramatically elevated risk. High-resolution anoscopy (HRA) is the standard of care for surveillance and treatment of precancerous lesions. In most major U.S. cities there are only a handful of HRA-trained providers, no public referral map, and no coordinated home for the work. Patients wait. Primary care refers blind. Research happens in silos. ASSETS is the coalition built to fix that, chapter by chapter.
At the inaugural ASSETS-NY meeting in March 2026, more than 50 clinicians from 20+ institutions independently named the same problems. None of these are NYC-specific. If you have worked in anal cancer prevention anywhere in the country, this list will feel familiar.
Primary care clinicians and ID specialists cannot find HRA providers accepting new patients. Patients cycle through referrals that go nowhere. The map, if it exists at all, lives in someone's inbox.
The training pipeline for high-resolution anoscopy is thin, expensive, and slow. Clinicians who want to learn cannot always find mentors. The providers doing the work are overextended.
Investigators studying screening outcomes, treatment, and disparities rarely share data or infrastructure across institutions. Duplicated work, missed patient populations, slower answers.
Public health messaging about anal cancer is rare, and what exists often bypasses the communities most affected. Patients delay care because no one has ever told them this cancer is preventable.
ASSETS is organized around deliverables, not declarations. Each chapter builds the same core infrastructure, adapted to its region.
A living, city-by-city map of HRA, cytology, vaccination, dysplasia treatment, and LGBTQ+-affirming oncology. Wait times, insurance acceptance, new-patient status, contact paths. Built for patients and primary care clinicians to actually use.
Training pathways and peer-to-peer learning so every region can grow its own HRA-trained providers. Coordination with IANS, ADCI, AETC, and regional academic medical centers.
Common data elements, cross-site collaboration on screening outcomes, and a clear on-ramp for community-partnered research. Community co-investigators named on grants, not listed in acknowledgments.
Plain-language education and stigma-aware campaigns co-developed with clinicians, patients, and survivors. Assets every chapter and partner clinic can use without reinventing.
Coordinated pressure on billing codes, payor coverage (hrHPV testing for anal use, DARE billability), and state-level guideline adoption. Coalition members bring the data; the coalition brings the unified voice.
A working meeting, not a conference. The first ASSETS Symposium is planned for March 2027 in New York. Chapters present, members train, partners fund, and the next year's roadmap gets written.
On March 26, 2026, more than 50 clinicians, researchers, and public health leaders gathered at Lenox Hill Hospital for the first anal dysplasia coalition meeting in the NYC metro area. It was convened by Cheeky Charity in partnership with Northwell Health, with support from the NYS Department of Health AIDS Institute.
The meeting produced three things: a named steering track, a working planning committee meeting every four to six weeks, and a members-only working space where clinical guidelines, referral pathways, research, and provider-facing tools live. The NY chapter's next working session is in late April 2026, with the inaugural ASSETS Symposium scheduled for March 2027.
Coalition membership is institutional and individual. The following organizations had representatives at the inaugural meeting or are active on the planning committee.
A note on privacy. The working materials the NY chapter produces, including referral pathways, provider directories, and clinical resources, live in a members-only space. Coalition members choose what gets made public and when. If you are a clinician or institution interested in access, see Get involved.
ASSETS grew out of two years of one-to-one conversations between clinicians who kept saying the same things to each other. The coalition exists because the people doing this work asked for it.
Cheeky Charity convenes bilateral conversations with HRA providers, ID specialists, colorectal surgeons, and LGBTQ+ health leaders across the NYC metro area. A pattern emerges: everyone is working in isolation on the same four problems.
A working group anchored at Northwell, with NYC H+H, Columbia, Einstein, NYS DOH, ACS, and NYU Langone, begins designing the inaugural meeting. Name confirmed: ASSETS (Anal Dysplasia Screening, Surveillance, Education and Treatment Services).
50+ attendees from 20+ institutions at Lenox Hill Hospital. Every role group independently identifies referral pathways, workforce, research coordination, and stigma as the coalition's priorities.
Members-only working space launches for coalition resources. Planning committee meets on a regular cadence. Referral directory prototype circulates for member review. Draft charter goes out for feedback.
Working symposium in New York. CME-accredited clinical sessions, coalition business, new-chapter onboarding, and the coalition's first public research and policy agenda.
ASSETS is deliberately broad. Prevention is a team sport and we need the whole bench.
You refer patients for HRA and screening and you need a directory that actually works. Your voice shapes the referral map.
You are doing the clinical work that holds this whole system up. The coalition exists to give you a peer network, a pipeline, and a policy voice.
The handoff from prevention to treatment is a place ASSETS wants to make cleaner. You are part of that conversation.
The data, the codes, the billing fights, the grant applications. If you run a program, the coalition wants what you know.
Shared data elements, community partnerships, and an annual venue to present and coordinate. Let's stop duplicating each other.
Institutional membership in ASSETS is a signal to patients and funders that your system takes this cancer seriously.
LGBTQ+ health organizations, patient support groups, and community health workers. Your channels reach the people clinical systems miss.
Your experience is the coalition's compass. Share your story, sit on working groups, or just point your friends to the resources.
If your region has even two or three HRA-trained clinicians, an LGBTQ+ patient base, and an academic medical center willing to host, you have the raw material for an ASSETS chapter. We already have early conversations underway with colleagues in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
The model is portable on purpose. New chapters use the NY chapter's framework as a template, adapt to local payor and referral realities, and join the national planning committee that sits above all chapters.
Pick whichever is closest to how you actually work. All four roads lead to the same coalition.
Join an ASSETS chapter as an individual member. Come to the next planning meeting, contribute to the referral directory, or co-present at the 2027 symposium.
Become a member →Have your organization formally represented in ASSETS. Institutional members help shape policy positions, workforce programs, and the annual symposium agenda.
Talk to us →ASSETS is building the kind of infrastructure that disease-area coalitions in other cancers took decades to build. Early funders get to help shape it.
Support the coalition →Looking for care, a screening conversation, or a place to share your story? Reach out to Cheeky Charity directly and we will point you somewhere useful in your region.
Get in touch →If yours isn't here, write us. We will add it.
Whether you run a clinic, a research lab, a grantmaking portfolio, or a support group, there is a role for you in ASSETS. Tell us how you want to show up.