Racial Disparities

This study, Communicating Multiple Disease Risks: A Translation of Risk Prediction Science, translates epidemiological data about five major health consequences of insufficient physical activity into a visual display that conveys individualized risk estimates in a way that is understandable and meaningful to diverse lay audiences and motivates physical activity behavior.

This line of research strives to engage all members of the community throughout the research process to help navigate the healthcare process.

This project worked towards increasing and providing effective mammography screening for women in the St. Louis area.

This project focuses on engaging community members in the research process by providing fellows with the knowledge and skills to implement public health interventions in their own neighborhoods.

Ying Liu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of surgery, has received a three-year, research scholar grant from the American Cancer Society to study disparities associated wtih ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).

In this Department of Defense project, Dr. Drake and colleagues utilize a prostate cancer cohort from the VA hospitals to explore the association between obesity and prostate cancer recurrence, and its outcome on patient health.

About 11% of colon cancers (CRC) and 18% of rectal cancers occur in adults younger than 50 years. In contrast to the recent population decline in CRC incidence in adults aged 50 and above, CRC incidence has increased in all 5-year age groups between 20 and 49 years. The majority of young-onset CRCs are diagnosed symptomatically with more advanced tumors. Dr. Cao is leading research to discover the genomic landscape of young-onset CRCs and the underlying lifestyle factors that may drive the rising incidence.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) helps give community members voice in academic research. These projects evaluated current and past CBPR projects to discovery future best practices.

The mission of Siteman Cancer Center’s Program for the Elimination of Cancer Disparities (PECaD) is to create a national model for eliminating local and regional disparities in cancer education, prevention and treatment. Through a community advisory committee and community partnerships, PECaD works with community representatives to find solutions that reduce disparities.

The Prostate Cancer Biorepository Network (PCBN) is a Department of Defense (DOD)/ Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) bioresource that provides tissue and other biospecimens to all prostate cancer investigators.

The long-term goal of this collaboration between Dr. Drake and The St. Louis Mens Group Against Cancer is to be able to identify patients with increased risk for dying of prostate cancer while they are still treatable.

The PIE study is a cohort study of prostate cancer survivors who underwent prostate surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. These men were followed for one year after their surgery to better understand the natural history of treatment side effects, such as urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction, and possible factors that influence the natural history of these side effects, such as physical activity and obesity.

A very dense breast on mammogram is one of the strongest risk factors for breast cancer, and many women in the United States have extremely dense breasts. There is, however, very limited knowledge on how to modify breast density to reduce breast cancer risk

The Siteman Biostatistics Shared Resource (SBSR) facility is a shared resource core supporting consultation on biostatistics and epidemiology. The facility supports cancer research through experimental designs, study monitoring and data analyses.

This project, the Department of Defense Serum Repository Study of the Influence of Infections on Biomarkers of Prostate Pathology, is nested within the large population of men on active U.S. military duty with stored blood samples in the Department of Defense Serum Repository. The project examines the short- and longer-term influence of genitourinary and non-genitourinary infections on biomarkers of prostate pathology to inform the possible influence of infections on later prostate cancer risk.

The ColoCare Study follows a cohort of men and women who have been newly diagnosed with colorectal cancer (stages I-IV). This project's main interest is in quality-of-life and in rates of cancer recurrence and death.

Alumni of the first Community Research Fellows Training (CRFT) program created this project, which focused on identifying the health needs and concerns of homeless women ages 45-64 living in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

This CRFT Alumni project, Unemployment and Mental Health Literacy among African American Mothers in St. Louis County, examined levels of stress experienced by unemployed African American mothers and whether educational materials about the effects of stress related to unemployment improved their recognition of stress, stress management and knowledge of when to seek services.