Ongoing Global Health Projects

The Lancet Commission on Evidence-Based Implementation in Global Health

In the fall of 2022, Lancet launched a new commission to focus on advancing implementation of evidence-based health interventions across the globe. The Lancet Commission on Evidence-Based Implementation in Global Health has brought together commissioners from research, clinical practice, public health, and policy roles across the world to develop a plan to implement effective interventions at scale. The Commission, which includes DCCPS Deputy Director for Implementation Science David Chambers and founding DCCPS Director Barbara Rimer, is working on a range of different activities (e.g., evidence synthesis, concept mapping, toolkit development) that will culminate in a published report in Lancet next year. An initial commentary, offering a conceptual framework for the Commission’s work was published last year in Lancet.

Data Available for R2C2 Study (US and UK Cohorts)

The Relationships, Risk perceptions, and Cancer-related behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic (R2C2) study dataset is available upon request. A paper outlining the study design and methods is available as a preprint. The R2C2 Data Linkage Project dataset will be available soon and will include the following County- and UTLA-level data from the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively:

• COVID-19 pandemic context – cases, deaths, vaccination rates
• SDOH context – unemployment, population density, median household income, rural/urban

For more information, please contact any of the following DCCPS staff: Amanda Acevedo, Becky Ferrer, Tanya Agurs-Collins, Laura Dwyer, Jen Bowers, and/or Chloe Huelsnitz.

The Confluence of Cancer and HIV Stigma in HIV-Positive Individuals Diagnosed with Cancer

New Behavioral Research Program-led RFAs, “The confluence of cancer and HIV stigma in HIV-positive individuals diagnosed with cancer” (RFA-CA-25-011, RFA-CA-25-012), have recently been published in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts. Robin Vanderpool and Becky Ferrer serve as the scientific points of contact. The research projects funded under these RFAs will advance the current understanding of the confluence of cancer stigma and HIV stigma among people with HIV (PWH) diagnosed with cancer; assess the impact of these two converging stigmas on cancer outcomes among PWH with cancer; leverage stigma reduction interventions at multiple levels to intervene on modifiable mechanisms of stigma that contribute to negative cancer outcomes among PWH with cancer; and promote research in diverse domestic and international contexts, focusing on regions in which the HIV-cancer burden is elevated.

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Global Health Research and Training Initiatives

US Embassy Science Fellowship

Carolyn Reyes-Guzman will depart for France in late September on a US Embassy Science Fellowship to work with the French Government, through the US Embassy in Paris. As part of this detail, Dr. Reyes-Guzman is expected to interface primarily with the French National Cancer Institut (INCa) as well as Santé Publique (the French equivalent of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC]). The fellowship will consist of leading a landscape analysis of France’s national cancer control plan in the context of tobacco cessation interventions and providing expertise in support of a new national tobacco cessation program.

International Behavioural Trials Network Summer School and Conference

Susan Czajkowski gave a talk, “A review and comparison of behavioral intervention development frameworks: ORBIT, SOBC & MRC,” at the International Behavioural Trials Network (IBTN) summer school in Montreal, May 2024. Her presentation was tweeted/posted about on Twitter/X. See here. At the IBTN summer school and conference, Dr. Czajkowski and co-lead Nicole Alberts of Concordia University helped students, post-docs, and junior investigators design a protocol for developing and testing a digital intervention for adolescent and young adult survivors of pediatric cancers.

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Noteworthy Reports

• Neal Freedman co-authored the following publications: a paper, “Smoke exposure associated with higher urinary benzene biomarker muconic acid (MUCA) in Golestan Cohort Study participants,” published in Biomarkers: biochemical indicators of exposure, response, and susceptibility to chemicals; a paper, “Prevalence and determinants of opioid use disorder among long-term opiate users in Golestan Cohort Study,” in BMC Psychiatry; a paper, “Unveiling an association between waterpipe smoking and bladder cancer risk: a multicenter case-control study in Iran,” published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention; and a paper, “Association between waterpipe smoking and lung cancer: a multicentre case-control study in Iran,” published in Public Health.
  
  
• Mark Parascandola of NCI’s Center for Global Health (CGH), Tobacco Control Research Branch (TCRB) contractor Laura Baker, and colleagues coauthored the paper “Portfolio analysis of global tobacco control research funding at the National Cancer Institute, 2000-2019,” published in in Tobacco Prevention and Cessation.
  
  
• Katie Heley, Robin Vanderpool, and Vidya Vedham served as guest editors for a recently published special issue of JNCI Monographs focused on global cancer stigma. The special issue highlights the importance of understanding, measuring, and addressing cancer stigma to reduce the global cancer burden and promote health equity. This special issue was a collaboration between the Behavioral Research Program and CGH and emerged from a Global Cancer Stigma Research Workshop meeting held in 2022.
  
  As part of the global cancer stigma special issue, Drs. Heley, Vanderpool, and Vedham authored two papers: the first, “Global cancer stigma research: a US National Cancer Institute workshop report,” and the second, “The global landscape of cancer stigma research and practice: perspectives, measures, interventions, and actions for change.”
  
  
• Jen Guida co-authored a paper, “Associations between quantitative measures of mammographic density and terminal ductal lobular unit involution in Chinese breast cancer patients,” published in Breast Cancer Research.

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Meeting Reports

US-Cuba Joint Scientific Meeting

Betsy Hsu attended the US-Cuba Joint Scientific meeting, held February 14-16, 2024, in Havana, Cuba, co-hosted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Instituto de Medicina Tropical “Pedro Kouri,” at the invitation of NIAID and NCI CGH. Dr. Hsu served as a presenter on the panel “Cancer epidemiology and its relation to biomedical research” to speak regarding the contribution of cancer surveillance toward real-world evidence in oncology. A presentation from the US perspective on cancer registries and surveillance was specifically requested by the conference organizers as a complement to a presentation on Cuban cancer registries. The goal of the meeting was to strengthen scientific ties and foster scientific collaborations among US and Cuban researchers and institutions conducting biomedical research, and covered topics including infectious disease and immunology, cancer, chronic non-communicable diseases, neurological disorders, and biomedical technology. There was robust discussion regarding potential research collaborations in how Cuba’s unique health care system could help foster better understanding of the drivers of cancer, as well as how surveillance data could be used to predict the impacts of new interventions. These discussions will serve as a foundation to further NIH’s goal in fostering scientific research collaborations with Cuba.

Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Conference of the Parties

Rachel Grana Mayne and CGH’s Mark Parascandola attended the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Conference of the Parties (COP10) in Panama City, Panama, in February 2024, as part of the US delegation. The United States is not a party to the FCTC and attends as an observer of the proceedings. The delegation was headed by HHS Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of Global Affairs Susan Kim, and included representatives across the Department of Health and Human Services, including from the HHS Office of Global Affairs, FDA, CDC, and NIH. The purpose of COP10 is for parties to report progress and discuss further implementation of the Articles of the treaty. Notable highlights included new efforts to consider activities and policies on a tobacco endgame, human rights and the environment in efforts to implement the FCTC, and when parties are engaging in negotiations of treaties pertaining to human rights and the environment.

Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco Annual Meeting

The Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) 2024 Annual Meeting was held in Edinburgh, Scotland, March 20-23, 2024. Carolyn Reyes-Guzman, Rachel Grana Mayne, and Mark Parascandola (CGH) co-presented a poster on the development of a US/France scientific roadmap highlighting challenges and opportunities in tobacco control, together with the French INCa. As part of her service as co-chair of the SRNT adolescent network annual meeting subcommittee, Dr. Grana Mayne helped plan and moderate a preconference workshop, “Navigating digital media to inform youth and young adult tobacco research.” The workshop consisted of four presentations, interactive components, and a moderated panel with Q&A. It focused on the risks and benefits of digital media on youth tobacco use, and the challenges and opportunities for research in that space. Kristen Mangold, Neal Freedman, and Maggie Mayer also attended SRNT, and the group met with federal and international partners, other organizations such as the American Cancer Society, and grantees.

Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine Annual Meeting

Amanda Acevedo contributed to the Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine program planning committee for the 81st annual meeting on “Biopsychosocial health in context,” which took place in Brighton, UK, in March 2024.

DCCPS International Interest Group Meetings

The DCCPS International Interest Group (IIG) met both in April and August of 2024. During the April meeting, a panel of speakers discussed work that came from the recently published “NCCP survivorship country profiles” for 21 countries in Africa to the International Cancer Control Partnership portal, as well as a peer-reviewed manuscript published earlier this year on survivorship-related strategies in NCCPs in Africa. During the August 2024 meeting, the IIG focused on learning about DCCPS grants with a foreign component, including hearing about some examples of currently funded grants with foreign components across the division. The objective of this meeting was to better understand the relevance of international involvement in DCCPS-funded research. Gina Tesauro gave an overview of the DCCPS grant portfolio with regard to foreign components, and program directors Veronica Chollette and Lisa Gallicchio prepared presentations on unique features of current grants with foreign components in their portfolios.

To submit topics for future meeting ideas for the IIG, please contact Rachel Hanisch or Carolyn Reyes-Guzman.

DCCPS Hosts French National Cancer Institute Representatives

The Tobacco Control Research Branch hosted Jérôme Foucaud and Anne-Fleur Guillemin from INCa for a working group meeting to finalize our joint INCa-NCI research roadmap, a result of the November 2022 grantee workshop on tobacco prevention and cessation interventions. During this visit, Carolyn Reyes-Guzman and Rachel Hanisch also hosted the IIG seminar on April 10, 2024, described above, where Dr. Foucaud highlighted the priorities of INCa and how they relate to DCCPS priorities.

1st National Tobacco Endgame Summit

Neal Freedman, Rachel Grana Mayne, and CGH’s Mark Parascandola attended the 1st National Tobacco Endgame Summiton April 23, 2024, in Washington, DC. This invite-only meeting was convened by the US Action on Smoking or Health to bring together key leaders in the US and global tobacco control community, including researchers, tobacco treatment specialists, community leaders, and public health advocates to discuss how to advance tobacco control, with an end to the tobacco epidemic as a goal and with health equity in mind. NCI supported the meeting along with Truth Initiative, the American Heart Association, Kaiser Permanente, MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council.

Joint Euro-American Forum on Cancer

The Joint Euro-American Forum on Cancer was held April 25-26, 2024, in Dublin, Ireland. Neal Freedman presented virtually, speaking on “Lung cancer: substantial progress, but far more work to do.”

Implementation Science Centers in Cancer Control Annual Grantee Meeting

The DCCPS Implementation Science Centers in Cancer Control (ISC3) team hosted a virtual 3-day annual grantee meeting, May 8-10, 2024. A component of the meeting focused on building implementation science in global settings. The introduction and welcome remarks were provided by Mark Parascandola of NCI’s Center for Global Health (CGH). Members of CGH (Patti Gravitt, Margarita Correa-Méndez, and Sudha Sivaram) and the DCCPS Implementation Science Team (Gila Neta, Aubrey Villalobos, Cynthia Vinson, and David Chambers) participated throughout the day, moderating panel presentations and facilitating breakout sessions. The meeting included two panel presentations: 1) “Implementation partners in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)” and 2) “Implementation of capacity building and partnerships in LMICs.” In between panel presentations, small breakout groups provided opportunities for attendees to engage in discussions. Topics of the breakout groups included “Exploring methods to understand the contextual relevance of evidence-based interventions and strategies,” “Implementation practice vs. implementation research,” “Partner engagement,” and “Capacity building and funding.”

Cross Border Network Meeting

David Berrigan and Linda Nebeling were session moderators at the Cross Border Network virtual meeting held May 13, 2024. As part of the Childhood Obesity Prevention Across Borders project, the Fogarty Center for Global Health Studies (CGHS) supported a group of small awards to catalyze the development of new research partnerships between US and Latin American investigators as well as among investigators across different Latin American countries to address childhood obesity prevention. This network meeting brought these awardees together to share their results and have group discussions about the challenges and benefits of working across countries, the role of capacity building, and how this can inform moving the field of childhood obesity forward in the United States and Latin America. Dr. Berrigan’s session was on “Expanding cross-country research collaborations,” and Dr. Nebeling’s session was on “Novel approaches to addressing childhood obesity.”

International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity

The International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) 23rd Annual Meeting was held May 20-23, 2024, in Omaha, Nebraska. Jen Zink presented on “The effects of interventions to reduce leisure screen time on depressive and anxiety symptoms among children and adolescents: a systematic review of randomized trials.” David Berrigan also participated in a symposium on “Gardening interventions for individual and community health across the life course” at the meeting.

Webinar: Tobacco Use and Control in Argentina

The Tobacco Control Research Branch hosted M. Victoria Salgado to speak on “Tobacco use and control in Argentina” on May 21, 2024. Dr. Salgado is a physician and researcher from Argentina, which has an adult smoking prevalence of 22.3% and where lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality. She serves as an associate researcher at the Center for State and Society Studies and at the Patagonian Hospital Translational Knowledge Unit. She also heads the Family Medicine Department at El Calafate Hospital in Argentina. Dr. Salgado has focused her research on chronic non-communicable diseases, with a particular emphasis on tobacco control. Recently, she began collaborating with the CISNET Lung Working Group, adapting their smoking and lung cancer models to the Argentine population.

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Upcoming Events

International Cancer Education Conference

Robin Vanderpool is speaking at the International Cancer Education Conference in Lexington, Kentucky, on September 25, 2024. Per the organization’s site, “This year’s meeting will focus on the trifecta of people, places, and progress within cancer education” and “spotlight the rich tapestry of cultures across regions, and the techniques and technologies that move us toward our goals to reduce healthcare disparities and improve health outcomes.”