Population Science

University Of California At Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

The overall goal of the Population Sciences and Health Disparities Program is to conduct research to delineate and mitigate factors that affect the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of cancer in human populations and their differential manifestations in health status to ultimately reduce avoidable cancer incidence, morbidity, mortality, and to improve the quality of life for those affected by cancer (i.e. survivors and their families). Members from a variety of disciplines contribute their expertise to elucidating variabilities in cancer risk among human populations due to (A) behavioral, socio-demographic, and cultural factors; and/or (B) due to health systems factors. The Program's major research accomplishments include (1) Delineating tobacco as the key to reducing cancer through policy and practice interventions; (2) Delineating new cancer disparities across racial/ethnic and socio-demographic populations and across multiple tumor types; (3) Enhancing cancer detection, treatment, and survival through analyses of large datasets; and (4) Systematically delineating and mitigating hepatitis B viral infections as a pathway to reduce liver cancer disparities. The program has six intervention research grants focused on mitigating cancer health disparities among African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Latinos. Our P01program project, Liver Cancer Control Interventions for Asian Americans is the only community-based program project. We are funded as the National Center for Reducing Asian American Cancer Health Disparities. The foundation of our research efforts are our multidisciplinary approach, our collaboration with registry epidemiologists, and our use of data from longitudinal cohort studies. The program has 24 members with affiliations to 13 different departments at UC Davis, LLNL, Kaiser Permanante, and CADHS. It has 14 NCl-funded projects for $3.5 million ADC (total peer-reviewed funding, $5.6 million ADC). The group has 322 publications for the last funding period; 23% are inter-programmatic and 13% are intra-programmatic.