Determine why certain cancers affect some communities and groups more than others.
Test and implement community-based interventions that promote cancer health equity.
Increase diversity in biobanking and clinical trials.
Increase community engagement in research and community health.
Identify gaps and needs for recommended cancer screenings.
Disseminate
Increase awareness through community outreach activities and education.
Provide multi-directional education to the community, scientists, and policymakers.
Develop local and culturally appropriate solutions to health equity challenges.
Impact
Build and sustain partnerships to develop culturally appropriate interventions to reduce cancer disparities.
Reduce known cancer risk factors.
Increase screening and early detection.
Remove barriers to recommended cancer screenings, diagnostic testing, genetic/genomic testing, care, and clinical trials.
Improve access to primary care, cancer treatment, and post-treatment supportive care.
Our Patient Population – DCI Catchment Area
Most Duke Cancer Institute patients are from Durham, Wake, and Orange counties in North Carolina. The DCI catchment area includes the following counties in North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina. About 15 to 25% of patients live further than 200 miles from Durham, NC.
31 Virginia Counties
Wythe, Carroll, Pulaski, Giles, Montgomery, Floyd, Patrick, Henry, Franklin, Roanoke, Botetourt, Bedford, Pittsylvania, Campbell, Halifax, Charlotte, Mecklenburg, Lunenburg, Prince Edward, Brunswick, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greensville, Nottoway, Amelia, Dinwiddie, Sussex, Southampton, Prince George, Chesterfield, and Henrico.
6 South Carolina Counties
Lancaster, Darlington, Marion, Marlboro, Dillon, and Chesterfield
Patient Demographics
Our diverse patient population includes:
62% non-Hispanic White 2
24% Non-Hispanic Black
8% Hispanic
2% Asian
2% Other
1% Native
Social Detriments of Health
25% are families with an annual household income of less than $25,000.
16% have less than a 12th-grade education.
22% live in rural areas.
78% live in urban areas.
Southeastern American Indian Cancer Health Equity Partnership (SAICEP)
The Southeastern American Indian Cancer Health Equity Partnership focuses on understanding and addressing the cancer-related health needs of American Indian communities in our catchment area and beyond. It is a unique collaboration initiated by the Community Outreach and Engagement teams at the Duke Cancer Institute, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center. Learn more.
SAICEP Leadership
Tomi Akinyemiju
Associate Director, Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity
Duke Cancer Institute
Stephanie Wheeler
Associate Director of Community Outreach and Engagement
UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center
Consultations
Contact us for a consultation to provide information and assistance on the best approaches to recruit groups that have been historically underrepresented in cancer research and who experience significant health disparities in North Carolina. These groups include but are not limited to: LGBTQ communities, people with disabilities, African Americans, rural populations, American Indians, Asian populations, Latinx groups, and those in the most vulnerable age categories: children and older adults.
To request a consultation or for additional questions, email us at DCICOEE@duke.edu.
Contact Us
To help us better understand your needs, please complete the following questions and provide a brief description of your project. This intake form should take no longer than 5 minutes to complete. You can also email us at DCICOEE@duke.edu.
The Office of Health Equity is part of the DCI’s Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity (COEE) program. Since 2012, it has been firmly committed to diversity, inclusion, and reducing cancer disparities facing historically underserved populations.
The Office of Health Equity spearheads in-person and virtual outreach efforts to educate historically marginalized and underserved communities throughout Duke Cancer Institute’s catchment area about the importance of routine care, which includes regular health screenings to detect and manage chronic illnesses and prevent cancer. We also connect people with a cancer diagnosis to the most appropriate healthcare facility for treatment. Our programs include screening events and attendance at health fairs.
Our patient navigators are trained to work closely with people in the community before and when a cancer-related concern becomes known. Their services include:
Bilingual education on cancer prevention, risk factors, and screening guidelines.
Connecting people with recommended cancer screenings, treatment needs, and finding a primary care provider or medical home.
Helping people find financial assistance for needed cancer-related medical care.
Directing people to healthcare services for further diagnosis and referral for treatment navigation.
Keep track of and help people get to their medical appointments.
Coordinate care with people’s medical teams.
The patient navigators serve everyone in the community regardless of insurance or documentation status.
In-Person and Virtual Community Events
The Office of Health Equity organizes free prevention and screening events and participates in community events, health fairs, and church gatherings to connect with people from historically underserved populations. Our team distributes information in person and virtually to increase awareness about the risks of cancer and help people in these communities find ways to overcome barriers such as not having health insurance.
Men’s Health Screening and Awareness Event:
This annual event is aimed at helping improve the health outcomes of men in the community. The Office of Health Equity, Duke Primary Care-Croasdaile, and Lincoln Community Health Center (a local federally qualified health center), collaborate to increase awareness of, and screen for, prostate, skin, and colon cancers, as well as conduct lung cancer risk assessments. The event also provides educational resources and assessments for chronic health conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and HIV/Hepatitis C.
Patient navigators work with participants who receive abnormal test or screening results and concerning findings to help address health concerns by connecting them with accessible, comprehensive, and high-quality primary and specialty care, health education resources, and/or additional patient navigation services.
Our community partners share information about tobacco cessation and make referrals to DCI's Quit at Duke program, as well as offer tips to encourage healthy lifestyle behaviors related to diet and exercise.
The Office of Health Equity provides cancer education and screenings during Women’s Health Awareness Day, an annual conference typically held in April that aims to increase awareness and knowledge among women to help promote better health.
The Office of Health Equity cancer education sessions feature experts and cancer survivors who provide women with information about cancer risk factors, prevention, relevant and recommended screening guidelines, and helpful information related to a survivor’s personal journey with cancer. The cancer screening room generally includes multiple recommended cancer screening and patient navigation services to follow up on any abnormal or concerning findings.
The health conference is sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the Durham Alumnae Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the Durham Alumnae Delta House, Inc., and the Public Health Education Department at North Carolina Central University (NCCU).
Community Health Ambassador Program – Virtual Training
The Office of Health Equity team members provide virtual trainings for leaders in faith and community organizations to teach them how to spread the word about preventing and screening for cancer, hypertension, and diabetes. The leaders also learn how to set up a health advocacy team or health ministry within their own organization. So far, the program has reached more than 50 organizations in 40 North Carolina counties.
The office has worked with the trained Community Health Ambassadors to develop programs for their specific communities. For example, we coordinated virtual events providing information on specific types of cancers to include a Spanish-language Facebook Live event organized with the Mexican Consulate in Raleigh which drew 469 participants.
DCI Office of Health Equity's community-facing patient navigators lead the Community Health Ambassador Program. Left to right: Dalia Antunez, Kimberly Bradsher, and LaSonia Barnett.
The office assists DCI scientists in refining research ideas and proposals to promote the principles of community engagement and assist with finding collaborators and partners who can contribute to ongoing studies. The office does so by:
Providing Feedback
On recruitment, retention, and community engagement.
From community advisory council members on research proposals, or projects.
Facilitating Connections
We help identify collaborators or community partners.
We assist in outreach to diverse populations for recruitment and retention.
We encourage participation in COEE events to generate new ideas and collaborations.
Supporting Evidence
Epidemiologic data on the burden of cancer in our catchment area.
Description of DCI catchment area demographics and SDOH.
Language on COEE, CAC, and community partner resources for proposals.
Pilot Funding
DCI community-engaged research pilot grants.
DIRECT Program
The DIRECT (Diversifying Research and Experiential Learning in Cancer Training) Fellowship program promotes cancer research equity among minority trainees through mentorship, professional development, and science communication. The 12-month applied research opportunity aims to create a diverse, innovative, and impactful experience in the cancer research workforce.
Community Outreach and Engagement Foundational Training Modules
Access Module 1 CITI Training
Go to your CITI member page and click on “View Courses” next to Duke Health.
Scroll down and click “Add a Course."
Select “Community-Engaged and Community-Based Participatory Research.” Click Next. The course will be added to your queue.
Access Module 2 LMS Training
Go to Duke LMS site and search for the offering ID: 00169473. The following course details will be made available : Name: Duke Cancer Institute COEE Foundational Training: Duke Hospital and Durham History Course ID: COEE_HISTORY_03072022 Offering ID: 00169473
Click “Register” underneath the course details to register for the course. The course will then be added for you to complete under ‘My learning"
Community Health Event Planning
Duke employees and learners who wish to conduct or provide service in a community health activity must complete a request form and complete training provided by the Duke Department of Community and Family Medicine.
CREST Dashboard
The CREST Dashboard is a comprehensive, multilevel data warehouse that facilitates the evaluation of the cancer burden and disparities in the DCI catchment area. CREST integrates data from the Duke Cancer Registry, Duke EHR, state cancer registries (NC, SC, VA), and contextual measures of social determinants of health. CREST enables DCI scientists to identify areas in need of targeted efforts to eliminate health disparities, advance cancer health equity, and reduce the burden of cancer in our catchment area and beyond
Specific Aims
Curate Duke Cancer Institute patient data to understand the needs of our patient population.
Analyze NC Cancer Registry data to identify the burden of cancer in our catchment area and in NC.
Examine the impact of social determinants of health in cancer outcomes in catchment area and NC.
Examine the prevalence and trends in key cancer risk factors in catchment area and NC.
Be responsive to data needs and requests from community partners and DCI investigators using CREST infrastructure to interrogate cancer data in NC and/or catchment area.
New Users
Please review and complete the COEE Foundation Training on LMS for context to the data presented in the dashboard. Once completed, request access to the CREST dashboard.
Feedback Survey
Please complete our survey to let us know what can be improved in the dashboard.
CREST FAQs
Read answers to frequently asked questions about the CREST dashboard.
Related News Results
In August 2023, a team of volunteers led by Trinitia Cannon, MD (third from left), Leda Scearce, CCC-SLP, MM, MS, and Dina Abouelella, MPH, which also included Tammara Watts, MD, PhD (center) and Katharine Ciarrocca, DMD, MSEd, partnered with North Raleigh International Baptist Church and Duke Raleigh Hospital to offer head and neck cancer screenings. Dozens of families from the Cedar Creek Apartment Complex community came out for the free screenings, education, and games, and Duke Raleigh Hospital donated backpacks full of school supplies.
TheDuke University School of Medicine Department of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences (HNS&CS) recently launched Project CHECKERS (Community Head and NEck Cancer Knowledge, Engagement, Research and Screening) a Duke Cancer Institute-funded pilot project to bring head and neck cancer resources and education to the broader Durham community.
Led by DCI head and neck surgeon Trinitia Cannon, MD, an associate professor in the Department, the project will be the Department’s first community-based participatory research project and the first such head and neck cancer screening and cancer prevention education project in North Carolina.
Evolving Community Research
The Project CHECKERS team will use a mixed methodology, which includes traditional surveys and screenings as well as interviews and focus groups.
One of their community partners will be the Cedar Creek Apartment Complex community in North Raleigh. Many of these families are refugees — from at least seven different countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East — who speak Farsi, French, Swahili, Arabic, and other languages. They are building new lives in North Carolina, in a culture and language that is new to many of them. As is the case with many similar communities, their healthcare needs often go unmet.
The investigators believe that, compared to traditional methods, mixed-method research is an improved way to establish a community partnership, highlight gaps in the community’s knowledge and risk perception, and pave the way for successful future health interventions.
According to co-PI Nosayaba (Nosa) Osazuwa-Peters, BDS, MPH, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences, Project CHECKERS takes an important step in improving community engagement.
“Traditional research is very systematic, very top-down. The researchers have knowledge and decide what they believe the community needs. But these outside scientific experts do not know the values, the culture, the knowledge, or the risks inherent in that community,” he explained.
For example, traditional surveys restrict participants to answering either yes or no; for many people, that binary does not tell a complete story.
“Project CHECKERS will help us understand the lived experiences of people in these communities,” added Osazuwa-Peters. “We’ll learn about context, and we’ll learn to ask questions that allow community members to express themselves. We’ll get responses we would never get based on yes or no.”
Building a Partnership
Project CHECKERS kicked off this fall with focus groups and interviews with community members facilitated by Laura Fish, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in Family Medicine and Community Health, Duke University School of Medicine, and program director for the Behavioral Health and Survey Research Core (a DCI shared resource). An advisory board will provide feedback from both clinical and community perspectives.
Lessons learned from these conversations will help the team develop a knowledge and risk factor survey that will be administered during two head and neck cancer screening events with the community in 2024.
The CHECKERS team will also recruit providers outside the department to participate in these events to address other health concerns in the community such as primary care, mental health, and women’s health.
The long-term goal of Project CHECKERS is to show the benefits of tailoring head and neck cancer screening programs to the communities being served, and how that personalization can improve prevention, early detection, and overall survival in high-risk individuals who have limited access to care.
Noted Osazuwa-Peters, “The mixed-methods framework helps us understand not just whether an intervention works, but how, why, and for whom.”
Community Partners
Another plus to mixed-methods research is its appeal to community partners who might otherwise be hesitant to work with researchers.
“The design places a high value on the stories behind the numbers,” explained Cannon, “so these projects are especially attractive to community partners such as faith-based organizations, whose priority is improving practice and outcomes, more so than research and advancing knowledge.”
Project CHECKERS will provide a valuable bridge between Duke and the North Raleigh International Baptist Church (NRIBC), which ministers to a large immigrant community. NRIBC’s Pastor, Patrick Warutere, invited Duke to participate in the church’s inaugural Health and Dignity for All Fair in Raleigh in 2022. Cannon and CHECKERS co-PI Leda Scearce,CCC-SLP, MM, MS, a Duke speech pathologist and director of Community Engagement for the Department of HNS&CS, recruited nurses, medical students, and resident volunteers to provide HNC screenings for the event.
“We immediately felt a kinship with NRIBC’s Pastor Patrick Warutere and his leadership team,” shared Searce. “By the end of the day, we knew we wanted to continue to work together and set up a meeting the following week.”
Duke HNS&CS and the NRIBC team worked closely to develop the research plan and ensure that the goals and expectations of each group were aligned and transparent.
“That relationship with NRIBC has enabled us to incorporate the community’s perspectives into the development of Project CHECKERS,” said Scearce. “Our aim was to amplify the assets and expertise of the community members themselves.”
Cannon anticipates that Project CHECKERS will become a framework for future projects.
“We are looking forward to similar initiatives in hearing health for older adults, right-hemisphere stroke awareness, and more.”
Breast surgical oncologist and Mary and Deryl Hart Distinguished Professor of Surgery Eun-Sil Shelley Hwang, MD, MHS, with Oluwadamilola "Lola" Fayanju, MD, MA, MPHS, FACS, in early 2020.
Dr. Hwang was Chief of Breast Surgery at Duke at that time and Dr. Fayanju was an assistant professor of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology. Dr. Fayanju is currently Chief of the Breast Surgery Division at Penn Medicine.
A study initiated at Duke University School of Medicine lays bare significant racial and gender disparities in America’s surgical leadership.
Of the 2,165 faculty members included across 154 departments, men overwhelmingly claimed the top spots in surgical leadership, making up 85.9% of department chairs, 68.4% of vice chairs, and a staggering 87% of division chiefs.
What’s more a mere 8.9% of these leadership roles were filled by those from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups.
While women made a modest showing as vice chairs at 31.6%, they remained underrepresented elsewhere. Many of these women and those from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups were clustered in roles linked to diversity and faculty development, which might not pave the way to top department positions.
The study in JAMA Surgery — led by Oluwadamilola “Lola” M. Fayanju, MD — stands out because the research team of surgeons, trainees, and biostatisticians looked in detail at different leadership roles and the implications these disparities have for the pipeline to department chair.
CONTINUE READING at the Duke University School of Medicine Newsroom
On Tuesday, Oct. 17, DCI patient navigator and navigation manager Valarie Worthy, MSN, RN, and Deputy Director of DCI Steven Patierno, PhD, will participate in the first of a series of in-person meetings of the President’s Cancer Panel in New Orleans on "Opportunities for Enhancing Patient Navigation."
The topic on that date is "Reducing Cancer Care Inequities: Leveraging Technology to Enhance Patient Navigation."
The President’s Cancer Panel is a Federal Advisory Committee that monitors the activities of the National Cancer Program and reports to the President of the United States on barriers to progress in reducing the burden of cancer. The panel (Elizabeth Jaffee, Mitchel Berger, and Carol Brown) is convening key experts to discuss gaps and opportunities related to the use of technology to support cancer patient navigation. Information gathered during this meeting series will guide the development of the Panel’s report to the President.
This all-day meeting — to be held from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM — is open to the public and will be broadcast live. REGISTER
On September 13, the White House Cancer Moonshot program announced its support for and commitment to several new projects to "end cancer as we know it," including a new initiative led by TOUCH, the Black Breast Cancer Alliance, to bolster Black women’s breast cancer clinical trial participation by 2025 — with the goal of reaching 350,000 Black women and motivating 25,000 into trial portals.
The White House also announced a connected program, TOUCH Care, the first program to provide a nurse navigator service to assist Black breast cancer patients in clinical trials. This will include developing culturally-agile recruiting materials, training trial staff, and coaching patients. TOUCH Care is being led by TOUCH co-founder and Duke Cancer Institute patient navigator and patient navigation manager Valarie Worthy, MSN, RN, and piloted with Genentech, which will add five breast cancer clinical trials annually.
Worthy, a two-decade-plus breast cancer survivor, has been a nurse for more than 38 years and worked at Duke for the past 19 years. Her hometown is Ahoskie, in northeastern North Carolina.
VIEW White House Fact Sheet
VIEW Genentech Press Release
Social and molecular cancer epidemiologist Tomi Akinyemiju, PhD, associate director ofthe Duke Cancer Institute Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity (COEE) program, is one of four recipients of a 2023 Michelle P. Winn Inclusive Excellence Award from the Duke University School of Medicine.
Akinyemiju is an associate professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences and associate research professor of Global Health, Duke Global Health Institute. She is also an instructor in the Duke Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Clinical Science Departments.
The Michelle P. Winn Inclusive Excellence Award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to diversity and inclusion within the School of Medicine community. Nominees should exemplify excellence, innovation, and leadership in helping to create a more diverse and inclusive environment.
Eleanor Scott Bell, 79, was born and raised in Lumberton, the capital of Robeson County in North Carolina.
One of her earliest memories is of picking tobacco to supplement the family income. They were a family of nine with a large extended family — part of the Lumbee Tribeof NC, "People of the Dark Water."
“My daddy was in construction. He did brickwork, but he let us work with the local farmers. I started when I was probably 9 years old standing up on a cinder block handing tobacco to my momma,” she said.
Her first full-time job, once she turned 18, was at a local linen supply company. She began working for Temptation Hosiery Mills in Lumberton — maker of L’eggs pantyhose and other Hanes products — after it opened in 1974. Her sister Carolynworked at the large Converse factory in Lumberton, which had opened in a former B.F. Goodrich tire manufacturing facility in 1972 to makeChuck Taylor All-Star shoesand other sneaker styles.
In 1970, Eleanor Scott married Travis Bell, also a member of the Lumbee community.In 1977, the couple moved out of their single trailer in a Lumberton mobile home park and bought land and a double-wide further north in St. Pauls — a “Small Town with a Big Heart” located closer to the Fort Bragg U.S. Army base where Travisworked as a barber.
St. Pauls and Lumberton were part of the late 19th/early 20th-century textile boom that created mill communities across the Piedmont region of the state. The communities’ prosperity really took off in the 1940s when a big textile corporation purchased several area cotton mills. By 1953, North Carolina was a manufacturing powerhouse,leading the nation in hosiery production.
Textiles (including hosiery, clothing, and footwear) were woven into the fabric of many lives in the region. But beginning in the mid-1980s and through the 1990s production shifted to Latin America, China, and Southeast Asia — leaving thousands of workers, including in the Lumberton area, jobless. As noted in theOur Statemagazine article“Heart & Soles,”“if you grew up in the Piedmont in the half-century prior to the mid-’90s, chances are good that someone in your family — your grandfather or grandmother, your mom or dad, your aunts or uncles, your siblings or cousins — worked in a hosiery mill.These days it’s common to find mentions of Temptation Hosiery (bought by the Sara Lee Corporation, then closed in 1994), Kaiser Roth Mills, Converse (whichclosed their Lumberton plant in 2001), and other prominent factories of that era inThe Robesoniannewspaper obituary pages.
In 1980, at the age of 37,Eleanor Bell was forced to resign from Temptation for medical reasons. She had developed rheumatoid arthritis in her legs at around age 35 and stayed active — working and attending church on a regular basis — for as long as she could. But after undergoing surgery on her legs,her ankles then hips started “giving out.” She began using a walker, and one day fell and broke her knees. In 1999, she started using a wheelchair off and on to get around and in 2007, at age 64, became a full-time wheelchair user.Her churchprocured her a bed with a remote control that helps lift her up and out of the bed into her electric wheelchair each morning, which has allowed her to stay active.
Duke Cancer Institute announced the launch of a new Cancer Health Disparities & Equity lecture series.
The series is a collaboration between DCI’sDisparities SPORE(National Cancer Institute-designated Specialized Program of Research Excellence) and DCI’sCommunity Outreach, Engagement, and Equity (COEE) Program. It features distinguished speakers presenting innovative research and strategies that seek to reduce cancer health disparities and promote cancer health equity.
The series’ inaugural event, held on March 28 via Zoom, featuredLourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, Ph.D., MPH,professor of Preventive Medicine, associate dean for Community Initiatives, associate director for Community Outreach and Engagement, Institute for Health Promotion & Disease Prevention, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, and the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Baezconde-Garbanati’s talk was titled “Addressing Cancer and Other Health Disparities via Edutainment and Engagement in Vulnerable Communities.”
The Duke Cancer Institute Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity program (COEE) hosted the inaugural MaryAnn Black Distinguished Health Equity Lecture on Feb. 9, 2023, in honor of the lateMaryAnn Black, "for her extraordinary leadership, enduring impact, and powerful advocacy across the community." The event will be annual.
Black was a career social worker in Durham, North Carolina, who served on the County Board of Commissioners, worked as the associate vice president of community relations at Duke University Health System, and served in the North Carolina House of Representatives. Black died of cancer in March 2020, but her legacy lives on in the thousands of lives touched by her work in the areas of healthcare and education.
Duke Cancer Institute surgeon-scientist Tammara Lynn Watts, MD, PhD, has been named associate director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), DCI, effective July 1.
In this new role, Watts, an associate professor in the Duke Department of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences, will be responsible for strategic oversight of EDI across DCI’s clinical and academic workforce.
Watts will guide DCI on EDI best practices in recruitment, retention, and advancement, and lead us in expanding the pipeline of DCI clinicians, faculty, staff, and trainees from diverse backgrounds, including from groups that are under-represented in the national oncology workforce.
She will partner with Disease Group administrative directors, faculty, clinicians, and staff leaders in the development and implementation of long- and short-term EDI strategic plans for DCI aligned with the core missions of the National Cancer Institute, Duke University, the School of Medicine, and DUHS.
"Dr. Watts will promote and actively foster an equitable, diverse, and inclusive environment that encourages a culture of belonging across the entirety of DCI’s workforce," said Michael B. Kastan, MD, PhD, executive director of DCI. "Creating this new EDI role and naming Dr. Watts to this role is the next step forward in DCI’s mission to achieve cancer health equity."
Duke Cancer Institute approaches cancer health equity from three separate, but related, vantage points. This includes, in addition to workforce EDI, DCI's Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity (COEE) program and Office of Cancer Research Career Development (OCRCD).
The COEE program, led by Tomi Akinyemiju, PhD, works toward the elimination of cancer health disparities in the community — with the goal that marginalized, underserved populations have equal access to DCI programs, services, and equitable outcomes.
The OCRCD, led by Gerard Blobe, MD, PhD, has established an educational infrastructure for the training, mentoring, and professional development of DCI clinicians, staff, early-stage to mid-career investigators, and students (from high school through to postdocs), which prepares DCI's workforce to meet the needs of diverse populations in its catchment area.
"Our vision for DCI’s workforce — a clinical and academic workforce that’s reflective of our catchment area — will complement COEE and OCRCD efforts within DCI’s health equity framework," explained deputy director of DCI Steven Patierno, PhD, who, for more than a decade has overseen programs that advance DCI’s mission to eliminate cancer disparities and achieve health equity in the community.
Watts began her career as a surgeon-scientist in 2010 at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, where she remained until joining DCI and Duke in 2019. She takes care of patients with tumors in the head and neck, including oral cancers and skin cancers.
Watts’ research interests include understanding the biology of racial disparities in head and neck cancers and investigations of how the tumor microenvironment contributes to treatment failures in patients with these cancers. She is co-leader of a Developmental Research Program Pilot Award focused on the genomics of racial disparities in head and neck cancer, as part of an NIH-funded Duke Cancer Health Disparities P20 SPORE grant project (2020-23) and NRG Oncology.
The DCI Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity program recently hosted a discussion on colorectal conditions that disproportionately affect the LGBTQ+ community — including colorectal cancer, perianal lesions and more.Billy Lan, MD
Duke physicians Annapoorani Veerappan, MD (a specialist in general gastroenterology) and Billy Lan, MD (a colorectal surgeon who treats all diseases related to the colon, rectum and anus) discussed prevention and how LGBTQ+ identifying individuals can access medical support and resources for these conditions.
The webinar was moderated by Shaun Jones, a second year MPH student in Applied Epidemiology at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and Adriana Parker, MPH, an evaluation research assistant with Abacus at the UNC Center for Health Equity Research.
The COEE has planned a series of events to advance equity for the LGBTQIA+ community as it relates to cancer and other health disparities — as part of its ongoing "Conversations with the Community." This event was the second in the series. The first event — "Moving the Conversation Forward: LGBTQ+ Cancer Care Inclusion" — was held on April 5, 2022.
In October, the Duke Cancer Institute Office of Health Equity (DCI OHE) and the Mexican Consulate in Raleigh collaborated to bring awareness to breast, uterine, and cervical cancer detection and prevention through a webinar conducted in Spanish via Facebook LIVE. The event was part ofSemana Binacional de Salud 2021(Binational Health Week 2021), which was created by the Government of Mexico, through the Ministries of Health and Foreign Relations, to raise awareness and respond to the unique healthcare challenges of Mexicans and other Latinos living in the United States and Canada.
The Oct. 26 community event included a pre-recorded presentation by DCI gynecologic oncologist Rafael Gonzalez, MD, and a live presentation by Nadia Aguilera-Funez, a certified patient navigator/health educator with OHE.
The event was moderated byMónica ColinGutierrez, Consul for Community Affairs at the Consulate (pictured in the circle image above), and also included the participation ofMaría Sánchez, the Consulate's coordinator for La Ventanilla de Salud (VDS), a program of the Government of Mexico developed by the Department of Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Implemented through 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S. and local health organizations, the Ventanillas,according to the VDS website, "provide reliable information on health topics, counseling and referrals to available and accessiblehealthservices in local communities" and the program "was designed to improve the physical and mental health of Mexicans and their families living in the United States and to increase access to primary and preventive health insurance coverage and ensure culturally sensitive services in order to reduce the use of emergency services."
This is the second women's health event that DCI OHE and the Mexican Consulate have partnered on in service to the community. On March 31, 2021,the two collaborated ona similar community-focused webinar(also in Spanish) onprevention and screening for breast and cervical cancer.