EGRP-Supported Health Disparities Research
Overview
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has targeted the reduction of cancer-related health disparities as an important challenge. Health disparities are differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of cancer and related adverse health conditions that exist among specific population groups in the United States. These population groups may be characterized by gender, age, ethnicity, education, income, social class, disability, geographic location, or sexual orientation. The goal is to understand the causes of health disparities in cancer and develop effective interventions to reduce or eliminate them.
Funding Opportunities
The Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) is not currently sponsoring or co-sponsoring Requests for Applications (RFAs) or Program Announcements (PAs) for health disparities research; however, related NIH Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) are available.
- Behavioral and Social Science Research on Understanding and Reducing Health Disparities - expires May 12, 2013, unless reissued
- PAR-10-136
(R01)
- PAR-10-136
- Interventions for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in Native American Populations - expires May 16, 2014, unless reissued
- PAR-11-346 (R01)
- PAR-11-346
EGRP joins with other NCI Divisions, Offices, and Centers and other Institutes and Centers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund grant applications submitted in response to FOAs. View the full list of EGRP FOAs.
EGRP also encourages investigator-initiated grant applications on health disparities topics.
Funded Projects
The Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) supports a variety of research addressing health disparities. To learn more about EGRP's health disparities research portfolio, view a list of EGRP's active health disparities grants.
EGRP also supports established and emerging cancer epidemiology consortia to complement individual investigator-initiated studies. Data and resource sharing by consortia members promotes the rapid replication of research results from individual studies.
Examples of EGRP-supported consortia studying specific populations include:
- African-American Breast Cancer Consortium
- African Caribbean Cancer Consortium
- Asian Barrett's Consortium
- Asia Cohort Consortium
- Cohort Consortium (Members include the Black Women's Health Study, the Multiethnic Cohort Study of Diet and Cancer, and the Southern Community Cohort Study)
- Latin American Cancer Epidemiology Consortium (LACE)
- Men of African Descent and Prostate Cancer (MADCaP)
- Prostate Cancer Transatlantic Consortium (CaPTC)
View a complete list of EGRP-supported consortia.
Workshops
- Prostate Cancer in Men of African Descent: Opportunities for Global Research Collaborations (October 2011)
- First Workshop on Cancer Epidemiology and Genomics Variation in Hispanic/Latino Populations Within the American Continents (May 2006)
Research Resources
NCI and NIH resources that may be of interest to investigators interested in health disparities research include:
- Health disparities research in NCI's Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences
- NCI cancer health disparities portal
- Resources from the NIH Centers to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities
EGRP makes available compilations of research resources for cancer epidemiology, some of which may be useful for health disparities research:
- Biospecimen resources
- Cancer patient and survivor cohort studies
- Cancer registries (national and state)
- Cancer risk prediction models
- Genomic datasets for cancer research
- Other genomic resources
- Pharmacoepidemiology and health care databases
NCI's Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) tools that helps investigators compare populations with respect to the distribution of risk factors and cancer risk.
- Cancer Mortality Maps
Dynamically generated cancer mortality maps for the time period 1950-2004 - Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Science for Cancer Prevention and Control
Includes information about tools and data sources to assist in analysis and visualization - Health Disparities Calculator
Statistical software designed by Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) to generate multiple summary measures to evaluate and monitor health disparities - State Cancer Profiles
Dynamic views of cancer statistics for prioritizing cancer control efforts in the nation, states, and counties
Contacts
Staff in multiple EGRP Branches are interested in fostering research aimed at reducing cancer-related health disparities. Contacts include:
- Social environment, variation in exposure to environmental toxicants, and biological processes that lead to cancer -
Gary L. Ellison, Ph.D., M.P.H. - Cancer epidemiology in populations of African descent in the United States, Caribbean, and Africa -
Damali N. Martin, Ph.D., M.P.H. - Dietary intake, carcinogenic chemicals in foods, lifestyle factors, and molecular mechanisms that underlie cancer risk -
L. Joseph Su, Ph.D., M.P.H. - Biomarkers, epigenetics, metabolomics, proteomics, and risk assessment -
Mukesh Verma, Ph.D. - Biological determinants of health disparities associated with cancer and genome-wide association studies -
Krista A. Zanetti, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D.