Welcome to the inaugural issue of the DCCPS Activities newsletter! The goal of this newsletter is to provide updates, highlights, and accomplishments of the DCCPS staff involved in global health activities at NCI and NIH, as well as other partnering organizations. The division conducts and supports an integrated program of the highest-quality genetic, epidemiological, behavioral, social, applied, and surveillance cancer research in the United States and internationally. DCCPS-funded international research aims to monitor and explain the causes and distribution of cancer in populations throughout the world and to support the development and delivery of effective interventions. Many of us at DCCPS have played a leading role in the effort to address cancer burden globally, through our many collaborations within NCI, NIH, or other organizations working to improve the health of populations worldwide. I hope that you will find this newsletter an informative and valuable resource as you continue to move forward with your global health activities.
Damali Martin, PhD, MPH
DCCPS International Research Coordinator
August 2011
Volume 1, Issue 1
In This Issue
Muin Khoury and Deborah Winn Help Determine WHO's "Grand Challenges" for Developing Countries
Dr. Muin Khoury and Dr. Deborah Winn served on the Expert Panel of the World Health Organization's (WHO) project, Grand Challenges in Genomics for Public Health in Developing Countries (Grand Challenges project) led by WHO's Department of Research Policy & Cooperation.
DCCPS Contributing to Economic Evidence in Global Tobacco Control
NCI and the World Health Organization are collaborating to jointly produce a Tobacco Control Monograph – National Cancer Institute Tobacco Control Monograph 21: The Economics of Tobacco and Tobacco Control: A Joint Report from the National Cancer Institute and the World Health Organization. The monograph examines the growing evidence base on the relationship between global economics and tobacco control, including tobacco product taxes and prices, policy, and other tobacco control interventions.
Implementation Science Team's Glasgow and Sanchez Publish Article Highlighting NIH Global Health Initiatives and Challenges to Advance Research in Global Health
On Thursday, June 9, Dr. Russ Glasgow and Michael Sanchez of the DCCPS Implementation Science Team published an article highlighting examples of NIH global health initiatives in Translational Behavioral Medicine.
4th Annual Ca-PRI Network Meeting Held Near Amsterdam
As the United States considers its health care system under new organizational frameworks such as the Medical Home and the Affordable Care Act, approaches to health care in other countries offer potential insights.
NIH Convenes Workshop on Health Burden of Indoor Air Pollution on Women and Children
NIH held a workshop on the "Health Burden of Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) on Women and Children," May 9–11, 2011, in Arlington, VA. Support for the workshop was extensive, including from the Department of State, HHS Office of Global Health Affairs, NIH Institutes and Centers, CDC, the Environmental Protection Agency, and USAID.
Chinese Academy of Sciences - NIH Workshop Identifies Emerging Areas for Research Cooperation on Environmental Pollution and Cancer
DCCPS led a U.S. team in developing the scientific agenda for a workshop with China on environmental pollution and cancer.
DCCPS Staff Present at International Nutrition and Physical Activity Conference
NCI staff presentations at the 2010 annual meeting of the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) 
focused on food laws, physical education laws, and analyses concerning application of the Healthy Eating Index-2005 to the food environment and the national food supply. At the June 2011 annual meeting, presentations by Drs. Susan Krebs-Smith, David Berrigan, Robin McKinnon, and Heather Bowles focused on identifying patterns in the food environment; the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) Measures Registry and Catalogue of Surveillance Systems; analyses of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) that pertain to physical activity and dietary behaviors; the NIH Genes, Environment and Health (GEI) Initiative diet and physical activity grants; and assessment of the food environment in relation to diet and health.
International Childhood Cancer Cohort Consortium (I4C) Meeting,
September 19–20, 2011
Most cancer research to date has focused on cancer risk factors in adulthood, but there is growing awareness that early-life exposures may be important factors for cancer risk in both childhood and adulthood.
Childhood Leukemia International Consortium (CLIC) Meeting,
September 17–18, 2011
The Childhood Leukemia International Consortium (CLIC) is an international group of researchers established in 2006 in collaboration with the University of California at Berkeley and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, with the aim of sharing comparable data from case-control and family-based trio studies on childhood leukemia.
Ongoing Global Health Projects
Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS)
The University of Puerto Rico Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Puerto Rico Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System, and NCI implemented HINTS in Puerto Rico in 2009.
ICSN Explores Prominent and Emerging Screening Issues
The International Cancer Screening Network (ICSN) is a voluntary consortium of 28 countries that have active population-based cancer screening programs.
DCCPS Collaborating in Survey Methodology Reporting
Dr. Gordon Willis has collaborated with Dr. Hennie Boeije at Utrecht University in the Netherlands to develop a common framework for the reporting of results of survey questionnaire testing and evaluation. The authors presented the resulting guidelines in July at the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland to an international group of survey researchers.
DCCPS Lends Expertise in Nutritional Surveillance and Epidemiology
Dr. Amy Subar is a member of the Scientific Committee for the Nutrinet-Santé cohort study in France, the International Scientific Advisory Board for the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project, a large Canadian cohort study, and the Advisory Panel for the PANEU-Pilot consortium. PANEU-Pilot consists of institutes from Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Poland, and Portugal that will develop appropriate tools and procedures for collecting individual food consumption data through 24-hour recalls in randomly selected populations of adolescents, adults, and older adults. Dr. Subar taught sections of a nutritional epidemiology course at Imperial College London in 2009 and 2010 and will do so again in Fall 2011.
International Database Pools Objective Physical Activity Data
Dr. Richard Troiano participates in the International Children's Accelerometer Database , a partnership of organizations and initiatives from the United States, Brazil, Europe, and Australia. The database pools data for more than 25,000 youth aged 3–16 years from 18 studies conducted in 10 countries. All physical activity data is collected using similar accelerometers and data collection protocols. The database will be provided as a public resource in 2011.
Efforts Underway to Incorporate PRO-CTCAE in International Cancer Clinical Trials
Drs. Sandra Mitchell and Steven Clauser met with European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Subcommittee members at the October 2010 International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL) meeting.
Global Health Research and Training Initiatives
U.S.-China Biomedical Collaborative Research Program
NIH and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) are developing the U.S.-China Program for Biomedical Research Collaboration (BRC) to encourage research cooperation between U.S. and Chinese scientists.
Trans-NIH Tobacco Control Research Initiative Released
NCI will join the recently released third issuance of the International Tobacco and Health Research and Capacity Building program, trans-NIH research initiative led by the Fogarty International Center (FIC) and co-sponsored by NIDA.
DCCPS Staff Leading Ireland Fellowship Program in Health Economics
The NCI-Ireland-Northern Ireland Health Economics Fellowship in Cancer program is a doctoral training program that includes 10 months of coursework in health economics, cancer prevention, and health policy in Ireland and at NCI, followed by two years of mentored research at one of several NCI-designated mentor sites and a final year of mentored research at an affiliated host institution in Ireland. The U.S. oversight and mentors committee for this program is led by DCCPS staff (Drs. Martin Brown and Eric Feuer) and includes participation from several NCI grantees. Four Irish doctoral fellows are currently pursuing research projects at NCI mentor sites. Two fellows are currently taking course work at the academic home of the program, Trinity University in Dublin. Dr. Brown highlighted the research progress of the fellows as a keynote speaker at a 2010 Workshop on Health Economics and Health Policy Research in Belfast.
