Ongoing Global Health Projects

Center for Global Health Analyzes NCI Portfolio

Each year, NCI’s Center for Global Health analyzes the NCI portfolio to understand existing international collaborations in cancer research in NCI-funded extramural grants, NCI intramural projects, and non-grant/non-contract activities. The report, lead by Tosca Le and Elise Garton, is compiled with input from the international contacts in each division and the Center for Research Strategy. The data that inform this report are used throughout the year to respond to NIH, HHS, and other parts of the US government regarding international collaborations supported by NCI. The FY22 report (PDF) and PowerPoint slides are available upon request, and you may utilize the data as it suits your needs and activities in global cancer research. If you would like a copy of the report or slide set, please contact Denise Buckley.

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Global Health Research and Training Initiatives

Research and Training Initiatives within NCI’s Center for Global Health

Branch Chief Mark Parascandola and Deputy Director Patti Gravitt from NCI’s Center for Global Health (CGH) joined the July 2023 Behavioral Research Program’s All Hands to discuss research and training initiatives within CGH. The presentation highlighted the center’s goals in research, research training, dissemination, and partnerships and described the research themes, including to accelerate technology development for global cancer control, accelerate global cancer implementation science, understand and address global cancer health disparities, increase support for cancer clinical trials in low- and middle-income countries, and increase understanding of cancer etiology and biology through global collaboration. If you would like a copy of the slides presented at that meeting, please submit a request to the BRP inbox.

Careers in Global Health Panel

As part of the NCI Global Health Interest Group and Career Development Seminar Series, Naomi Greene co-hosted the Careers in Global Health Panel on March 29, 2023, featuring NCI CGH Director Satish Gopal, Erin Kent of UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Tsion Minas of NCI, and Hilary Robbins of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The panelists described their career paths and current positions, offering rich and diverse perspectives as researchers and mentors in the field of global health.

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Noteworthy Reports

Study Examines Low-intensity Daily Smoking and Mortality Risk Among Mexican Women

Neal Freedman co-authored a paper, “Low-intensity daily smoking and mortality risk among Mexican women,” published in Tobacco Control. In this large study, which included 104,717 female participants of the Mexican Teachers' Cohort Study, low-intensity smoking was associated with higher mortality risk for all causes and all cancers. The authors note that interventions are needed to promote cessation among women who smoke at low intensity in Mexico, regardless of how few cigarettes they smoke per day.

Column in International Newsletter Highlights Role of Occupational Therapy in Caring for Older Adults with Cancer

Rachelle Brick was invited to write a newsletter column for the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG). Her column, “Caring for older adults with cancer: the role of occupational therapy,” is highlighted in the organization’s summer 2023 newsletter. SIOG is a multidisciplinary society with members engaged in more than 80 countries around the world.

Commentary Discusses Findings of Analysis of Childhood Cancer Survivors in the US and Canada

Emily Tonorezos collaborated with Canadian researcher Valérie Marcil on this recent commentary in The Lancet, focused on healthy behaviors and late mortality in childhood cancer survivors. The commentary discusses findings from a publication by Dixon and colleagues in the same issue. In that analysis of data from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, late mortality (death ≥5 years from diagnosis) and specific causes of death were evaluated in 34,230 5-year survivors of childhood cancer diagnosed before 21 years of age from 1970 to 1999 at 31 institutions in the United States and Canada. The researchers evaluated specific health-related causes of late mortality and excess deaths compared with the general US population and identified targets to reduce future risk. Drs. Tonorezos and Marcil noted that “These findings provide a roadmap for reducing late mortality among childhood cancer survivors and have implications for providers, researchers, and policy makers.”

HINTS Highlighted in International Encyclopedia of Health Communication

Kelly Blake and Rick Moser led the publication of a chapter in the Wiley International Encyclopedia of Health Communication focused on the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). The International Encyclopedia of Health Communication brings together entries by an international panel of contributors that address a comprehensive range of recent and emerging topics, with a global and interdisciplinary focus. The chapter by Drs. Blake and Moser describes the history and methods of the HINTS data collection program, from its inception through HINTS 5, Cycle 4 in 2020. This was an invited chapter that Wiley solicited after the team published a similar peer-reviewed data resource profile in the International Journal of Epidemiology in 2020. The Wiley chapter draws heavily from that article. Either (or both) can be cited for HINTS background.

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Meeting Reports

International Conference on Diet and Activity Methods

Kirsten Herrick and Marissa Shams-White attended the International Conference on Diet and Activity Methods (ICDAM) 2023 on June 26-29, 2023, in Limerick, Ireland. At this multi-day international conference, researchers from across the globe shared their work on advancing methods for assessing dietary and physical activity exposures and outcomes. Attendees learned about the latest methodological research in different settings and countries and discussed research questions and challenges in this field through in-depth Q&A sessions, panels, and poster sessions. Drs. Herrick and Shams-White presented in and chaired or moderated several symposia, workshop sessions, and panels covering a wide variety of topics, including recent innovations, challenges, and future directions in developing quality metrics for monitoring dietary assessment; advances in web-based dietary assessment tools like ASA24; food processing and dietary patterns of infants and toddlers; assessing adherence to the 2018 World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research Cancer Prevention Recommendations; and building a career in diet and physical activity assessment. They also presented several posters highlighting tools and updates that the Risk Factor Assessment Branch has taken part in developing and promoting, including the release of the Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2020 and HEI-Toddlers-2020; updates to ASA24; links of a new dietary carbon footprint dataset to NCI’s Diet History Questionnaire; and updates from the US National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research on their Measures Registry and Catalogue of Surveillance Systems.

Marissa Shams-White also participated in a pre-conference working meeting on June 25th in Limerick, where the goal was to accelerate the advancement of methods for characterizing dietary patterns, broadly characterized as what we eat, when we eat, where we eat, and how we eat, as well as associations between dietary patterns and human and planetary health. The meeting facilitated discussions on priorities and action items, as well as international collaborations to leverage and expand partnerships and identify existing data and resources to advance promising methods. Dr. Shams-White and Jill Reedy served on the meeting’s planning committee; Dr. Shams-White moderated one of the three meeting panels; and colleagues in the Division of Cancer Prevention – Victor Kipnis and Kevin Dodd – were presenters at this meeting.

MASCC/JASCC/ISOO 2023 Annual Meeting

Chipper Dean gave an e-poster presentation at the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC), Japanese Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (JASCC), and the International Society of Oral Oncology (ISOO) Annual Meeting, June 22-24, 2023. Dr. Dean’s presentation focused on the need for alcohol use disorder treatment and reasons for unmet need among cancer survivors in the United States. At this meeting, which was held in Nara, Japan, the executive director of MASCC asked Dr. Dean to join their new LGBTQ+ issues workgroup.

Congrès de L’ Albatros

Carolyn Reyes-Guzman co-presented with the French National Cancer Institute (INCa) at the Congrès de L’ Albatros, an international conference on addiction, June 6-8, 2023. The presentation highlighted findings from INCa’s Barometre Cancer report (see the May 2023 issue of this newsletter for more on the report). Dr. Reyes-Guzman also participated in INCa’s scientific evaluation committee for their bi-annual call for proposals on psychoactive substances, focusing on tobacco and other substances in the context of cancer control in France.

International Meeting on Psychosocial Aspects of Hereditary Cancer

Chloe Huelsnitz and Bill Klein served on the planning committee and Kristen Mangold provided conference support for the 17th International Meeting on Psychosocial Aspects of Hereditary Cancer (IMPAHC), held at Shady Grove, May 23-24, 2023. The meeting showcased scientific presentations across a wide breadth of contemporary topics in hereditary cancer research and clinical care. Attendees joined the meeting from five continents and 23 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, India, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

European Congress on Obesity

Linda Nebeling attended the European Congress on Obesity, May 17-20, 2023, in Dublin, Ireland. Along with meeting a number of international investigators, Dr. Nebeling provided an update on NCI’s activities in energy balance, obesity, and cancer, including the Exercise and Nutrition Interventions to Improve Cancer Treatment-Related Outcomes (ENICTO) in Cancer Survivors and Metabolic Dysregulation and Cancer Risk Program (MeDOC) transdisciplinary consortiums.

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Upcoming Events

DCCPS International Research Interest Group Meeting – September 7, 2023

The next DCCPS International Research Interest Group meeting, on September 7th from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m., will highlight findings from CGH’s recent analysis of the NCI International Portfolio (see above summary) led by Tosca Le and Elise Garton. The talk will also discuss under-representation of NCI grantees from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in peer-reviewed publications. CGH assessed the country income level distribution of author affiliations for publications resulting from NCI-supported extramural grants between 2015 and 2019, with international collaborating institutions exclusively in one or more LMICs. Grants were identified in NIH Query-View-Report and linked to publications using Dimensions for NIH. The 159 grants analyzed resulted in 2,428 publications, of which, just over half (51%) did not include any LMIC authors. Additionally, 78% and 83% of publications had a first or last author affiliated with a high-income country (HIC), respectively. Publications with HIC-affiliated last authors also demonstrated greater citation impact compared to publications with LMIC-affiliated last authors, as measured by relative citation ratio (RCR) and Altmetric scores; publications with HIC-affiliated first authors also had higher Altmetric scores.