Noteworthy Reports

Study Compares Risk Factors for Overweight and Obesity after Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in North America and Switzerland

Emily Tonorezos collaborated with researchers in the United States and Switzerland on this recent paper published in Cancer Medicine. The study included adult childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) survivors diagnosed between 1976 and 1999 in the US Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS) and the Swiss Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (SCCSS). The authors calculated body mass index (BMI) from self-reported height and weight for 1,287 CCSS and 429 SCCSS participants; they then compared those with 2,034 siblings in North America and 678 siblings in Switzerland. The authors assessed risk factors and found that overweight and obesity was significantly more common among survivors of ALL and their siblings in North America than in Switzerland. To the authors’ knowledge, the study is the first direct comparison of adult survivors of childhood ALL involving high-income countries across two continents.

NCI and CDC Authors Discuss the Promise of Psychological Science to Improve Global Public Health

Bill Klein, with CDC’s acting immunization branch chief and lead of the Demand for Immunization team in the Global Immunization Division Neetu Abad, published an article in the Association for Psychological Science newsletter (APS Observer), “Psychological science and public health: a perspective from psychological scientist leaders in federal government.” The authors point out that “psychological science holds much promise in attempting to address the myriad of complex public health concerns we now face,” particularly as global health emergencies occur with greater frequency. Drs. Klein and Abad discuss psychological science as a building block to public health and public health as a sandbox for psychological science.

Study Among Mexican Women Highlights Adverse Health Effects of Low-intensity Smoking

Neal Freedman published an article, “Low-intensity daily smoking and mortality risk among Mexican women,“ in Tobacco Control. The authors note that accumulating evidence has shown that smoking 10 or fewer cigarettes per day (low-intensity smoking) increases the risk of death from all-causes. Yet, little evidence exists from low-income and middle-income countries, including in Mexico, where this smoking pattern is common. In this 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.”

Study Evaluates Age- and Stage-specific Lung Cancer Incidence Among Taiwanese Cohort

Another study by Neal Freedman, this one published in JAMA Open Network, evaluated whether women in Taiwan have higher age- and tumor stage-specific lung cancer incidence compared to men, regardless of smoking status. The authors point out that knowing whether the effects of smoking and other risk factors with lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) incidence varies by sex would provide information on lung cancer prevention strategies. In this cohort study, women had higher age- and stage-specific lung ADC incidence rates than men in Taiwan for both never and ever smokers, suggesting the possibility of differential exposures between sexes to risk factors other than smoking and the potential modification of ADC risk factors by sex.

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Meeting Reports

International Society of Geriatric Oncology Annual Meeting

Rachelle Brick was an invited speaker and panelist at the 2023 International Society of Geriatric Oncology Annual Meeting, held in Valencia, Spain, November 9-11, 2023. Dr. Brick’s panel talk was entitled “Challenges in implementing prehabilitation programs across geriatric oncology settings.” The International Society of Geriatric Oncology, also called SIOG (Société Internationale d’Oncologie Gériatrique) in French, is a multidisciplinary membership-based society with members engaged in more than 80 countries around the world.

Behavioral Research Program Hosts Guest Lecturer from Australia

BRP-invited guest speaker Dr. Erin Turbitt, senior lecturer and social scientist at Australia’s University of Technology Sydney, presented on “Developing the personal utility scale for genomic testing,” on November 7, 2023. Dr. Turbitt’s team developed and validated a patient-reported outcome measure, the Personal Utility (PrU) scale, for use in the adult and pediatric genomic context. In this informal talk, former NHGRI Visiting Fellow Dr. Turbitt discussed the PrU scale, the results of the exploratory factor analysis, and next steps including possible applications.

African Caribbean Cancer Consortium and Kenya Visiting Delegation

Somdat Mahabir attended the African Caribbean Cancer Consortium, October 11-14, 2023, in Mombasa, Kenya. Dr. Mahabir gave an invited presentation focused on the NIH grants process and on environmental exposures and cancer during the first day of the conference. Dr. Mahabir also gave a presentation, “Environmental exposures and cancer: highlights of branch initiatives and potential for cancer prevention research in Kenya,” to a visiting cancer-focused delegation from Kenya hosted by the NCI Center for Global Health on December 4, 2023.

International Conference on Communication in Healthcare

Heather Platter was selected as a finalist for the 2023 International Conference on Communication in Healthcare poster award. The conference, hosted by EACH: International Association for Communication in Healthcare, took place in Rio Mar, Puerto Rico, October 22-25, 2023. Dr. Platter’s presentation, “Cancer survivor communication preferences regarding out-of-pocket treatment costs,” was funded by a Cancer Research Award for Fellows in Training (CRAFT) and a Cancer Prevention Fellow Program (CPFP) Trans-Fellowship Research Award (TFRA).

Optimizing Smoking Cessation Treatment Among People Living with HIV

Joe Ciccolo, Annette Kaufman, and Center for Global Health’s Mark Parascandola and Marie Ricciardone hosted the Improving smoking cessation interventions among people with HIV (PWH) grantee meeting series, September 18-19, 2023. Grantees funded through other mechanisms were included, including the tobacco and HIV in low- and middle-income countries RFA.

European Health Psychology Society Conference

Chloe Huelsnitz gave an oral presentation, “Health-related social influences among siblings in families with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome,” as part of a symposium at the European Health Psychology Society conference in Bremen, Germany, held September 4-9, 2023. The European Health Psychology Society (EHPS) promotes empirical and theoretical research in and applications of health psychology within Europe as well as the interchange of information related to health psychology with other associations throughout the world towards an international achievement of these aims. Jen Bowers also attended the conference in Germany and gave a flashlight talk on the R2C2 Study methods, focusing on the challenges of collecting dyadic data from a large and diverse sample.

International Interest Group Meeting Highlights International Grant Portfolio and Publications

Carolyn Reyes-Guzman hosted the summer 2023 DCCPS International Interest Group meeting, on exploring the international portfolio and underrepresentation of low- and middle-income country grantees in publications. The presenters included Elise Garton, Tosca Le, and Linsey Eldridge from NCI’s Center for Global Health, who presented findings that are currently being summarized in a peer-reviewed publication, in preparation. As described in their AACR 2023 abstract, “Scientific publication is an important tool for knowledge dissemination and career advancement, but authors affiliated with institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are historically underrepresented on publications. We 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.”

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Upcoming Events

OCS Director’s Series – February 13, 2024

The OCS Director’s Series webinar on February 13, 2024, in collaboration with the NCI Office of Global Health, will feature speaker Enrique Soto Pérez de Celis, a geriatric oncologist and researcher at the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, in Mexico City. The title of his presentation will be Global Survivorship Care: Common Challenges, Common Solutions. Registration is now open.

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