Towards Achieving Health Equity – ASPO’s 2022 Annual Meeting
March 13-15, 2022
Marriott University Park, Tucson, Arizona
Communities of color, and people who are low-income, rural, LGBTQ+, immigrants, and Indigenous, among others, face disproportionate and inequitable cancer burdens. While advances in prevention and control research have led to improvements in cancer incidence and better survival from cancer overall, U.S. cancer inequities persist, and for some populations, gaps have widened over time. As highlighted in the 45th ASPO meeting in March 2021, there is an increasing acknowledgment for the impact of structural racism and discrimination as fundamental causes of these cancer inequities.
To further advance the productive discussions from the 2021 ASPO meeting, the theme of the 46thASPO meeting will be Towards Achieving Health Equity and will feature novel approaches to addressing cancer health inequities. The program committee was selected for their commitment and expertise in key areas of cancer health inequities. Working closely with the program committee, we organized a thought-provoking meeting to highlight emergent approaches and opportunities to address cancer inequities.
Four symposia are planned on the topics of:
- cancer interception: from concept to clinic
- innovations in patient navigation: what’s it going to take to achieve cancer equity?
- convergence epidemiology: bridging omics with social determinants and structural factors
- re-situating cancer control within public health and communities.
This year, we have also planned an additional panel discussion on institutional approaches for addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion, and concurrent sessions on novel approaches of and bias considerations in using electronic health records data in cancer control research, and challenges and successful examples in cancer consortia. The final program is shaping up with prestigious scholars in each of these topics already confirmed.
The call for abstracts will open in September and the highest-scoring abstracts will be selected for oral presentations at the conference and we will have, as usual, best poster awards.
ASPO’s Annual Meeting will be held Sunday, March 13 – Tuesday, March 15 at the Marriott University Park in Tucson, Arizona. The Associate Director and Program Leader Workshop will be held on Sunday, March 12th. More information is available here.
Scarlett Lin Gomez, M.P.H., Ph.D.
2021 ASPO Program Chair
University of California, San Francisco
Steven Patierno, Ph.D.
2021 ASPO Program Chair
Duke University
Lucile was the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in epidemiology in the United States, and in 1995 when she directed the Howard University Cancer Center she was the only African-American woman to lead any cancer institute. She is currently the Associate Director of Minority Health & Health Disparities Research, Senior Associate Dean for Community Outreach and Engagement, and Professor of Oncology at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center. Dr. Adams-Campbell has dedicated her career to studying cancer disparities experienced by African-Americans. Her research uses clinical trials, cancer epidemiology and etiology along with lifestyle interventions to elucidate the cancer risk in African-Americans and has led to over 200 peer-reviewed publications and international recognition as an expert in minority health and health disparities research.
Bo has unequivocally demonstrated an unyielding commitment to tobacco control efforts by enabling innovative research and spearheading public education, policy and advocacy initiatives. Her strong leadership, like Dr. Cullen’s, exemplifies a commitment to fostering collaboration among scientists, health care professionals, and public health advocates involved in the struggle against tobacco and tobacco-related diseases.
Health inequities are not new. However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and recent death of George Floyd among many other people of color has brought the issues of systemic structural racism and discrimination and health inequity into the forefront of American consciousness. Communities of color, and people who are low income, rural, LGBTQ+, immigrants, and Indigenous, among others, face disproportionate and inequitable cancer burden. While advances in prevention and control research have led to improvements in cancer incidence and better survival from cancer overall, U.S. cancer inequities persist, and for some populations, gaps have widened over time.
