Roshan Bastani, Ph.D. Director	Gail Harrison, Ph.D. Associate Director

Overview:

The Healthy and At-Risk Populations Program focuses on the prevention and early detection of cancer and on applying new findings in the basic biologic and behavioral sciences to intervention research with clinical and community populations. The program’s research portfolio encompasses a broad range of studies including: investigations in tobacco control; the role of dietary patterns and consumption of specific nutrients and bioactive compounds in cancer causation; nutrition and physical activity promotion; breast, cervix, prostate, and colorectal cancer screening; control of vaccine preventable cancers (liver, cervix); and interests in economic and community level factors as predictors of cancer-related outcomes. A major focus of the program is to bring cancer prevention and control to low-income, minority and underserved populations in an effort to reduce cancer-related disparities.

Goals:

• Reduce the cancer burden in the population at large by promoting widespread adoption of known and effective cancer prevention and control technologies. Examples include: tobacco control, healthful eating and physical activity and early detection via screening (e.g., mammography, colonoscopy).
• Address cancer disparities by focusing on the excess cancer burden among low-income, minority and other socially and medically underserved populations.
• Foster new discoveries in cancer causes, for example by investigating food intake patterns and food sources of nutrients for cancer risk.
• Understand the role of economic and societal level factors in cancer protective behaviors and cancer outcomes.

Meetings and Events:

• Annual Minorities and Cancer Symposium
• Monthly Seminar Series, held jointly with the Patients and Survivors and Molecular Epidemiology and Carcinogenesis Program Areas
• Monthly tea for program area members and staff of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Research
• Annual retreat with Patients and Survivors and Molecular Epidemiology and Carcinogenesis Program Areas
• Tobacco Working Group quarterly meetings
• Workshops and symposia jointly organized with School of Public Health
• Postdoctoral fellows' weekly journal club

Leadership:

Dr. Roshan Bastani, the Healthy and At-Risk Populations Program Area Director, is a professor and associate dean for research in the UCLA School of Public Health, and Co-Director of its Center to Eliminate Health Disparities. Bastani is a nationally recognized leader in the area of cancer disparities research. She studies access to health care in low income and ethnic minority populations with special emphasis on the community, organizational and individual determinants of cancer-related health practices. Over the past two decades, she has conducted numerous community-based intervention trials designed to rigorously test the most effective and efficient strategies to promote the uptake of proven cancer control practices and technologies. She leads an National Cancer Institute (NCI)/Center for Disease Control (CDC) funded Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network and co-leads a CDC funded Center of Excellence in the Elimination of Disparities. She is currently conducting a randomized trial to increase Hepatitis B testing among Koreans and an experiment to increase informed decision-making regarding prostate cancer among Latino men.

Dr. Gail Harrison, the Healthy and At-Risk Populations Program Area Associate Director, is a professor in the UCLA School of Public Health. With an academic background in nutrition and anthropology, Harrison has extensive experience in the evaluation of dietary and nutritional status in community-based studies, both in California and internationally. She is an established investigator in the field of nutritional status assessment, including dietary assessment at the population level, and in international health and nutrition. She has been instrumental in the design of national food consumption surveys in the U.S., Egypt and several other countries. She is conducting studies related to the assessment and monitoring of food consumption patterns and nutrient intakes in diverse populations including African-American, Hispanic, and Asian minority populations in Los Angeles. She serves as a regular member of the Cancer Education study section for the NCI .