‘Insider’ Training Program to Increase Number of Latino Researchers Studying Latino Cancer
Aug 30th
Question: Who might have insider information about Latinos that would pave the way for novel studies of cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic issues to prevent Latinos from suffering worse cancer outcomes?
Answer: A cancer researcher who also is a Latino.
To that end, the new Latino Training Program for Cancer Control Research (LTPCCR), led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio thanks to a new five-year, $1.57-million grant from the National Cancer Institute, aims to motivate Latinos to get their doctoral degree and become “insider researchers” in the field of cancer control among Latinos.
Right now, few Latinos pursue doctoral degrees or cancer research careers, causing a gap in the amount of researchers examining Latino cancer issues.
The LTPCCR will develop and organize a summer training institute, paid research internships, doctoral application support and mentoring to encourage Latino master’s-level students and professionals—from Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada—to complete doctoral programs and start careers in cancer control research.
“We hope that training new Latino researchers will increase the proportion of Latinos in cancer control research, which in turn will increase the amount of work being done to reduce cancer health inequalities that affect the Latino population,” said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of the IHPR, the team behind SaludToday.
Read more about the new program here.
Get Involved in the Fight Against Latino Cancer
Aug 6th
Here are some ways you can get involved in the fight against cancer:
Join Redes En Acción
You’re invited to join Redes En Acción: The National Latino Cancer Research Network and become part of a nationwide effort to fight cancer among Latinos. Redes, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute and directed by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez of SaludToday and the Institute of Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, has spent 10 years reducing Latino cancer. Redes has generated more than $200 million in funding for cancer research, trained more than 200 students and professionals and conducted more than 2,000 community education events and developed bilingual educational materials.
Join a Cancer Clinical Trial
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has a database of available clinical trials across the U.S. For help finding a clinical trial, you also can call the NCI at 1-800-4-CANCER. Another phone resource for help finding clinical trials is the American Cancer Society’s help line at 1-800-303-5691. The ACS line is open from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. ET Monday to Friday. If you live in South Texas, the Cancer Therapy & Research Center in San Antonio, Texas, has information about local clinical trials at 210-450-5798.
Cancer Disparities Research Opportunities
The American Cancer Society announces new opportunities for partnering organizations to become involved in research focused on reducing cancer disparities for population groups disproportionately affected by cancer burdens. The Cancer Control and Prevention Research Program of the Extramural Research and Training Grants Department is calling for applications in psychosocial, behavioral, health policy and health services research that addresses health disparities. For information, contact Ronit Elk, Program Director (Ronit.Elk@cancer.org) or Kim Smith, Program Coordinator (Kim.A.Smith@cancer.org).
Join Redes En Acción & Help Fight Latino Cancer
Jul 29th
You’re invited to join 
Redes En Acción: The National Latino Cancer Research Network and become part of a nationwide effort to fight cancer among Latinos.
Redes, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute and directed by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez of SaludToday and the Institute of Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, has spent 10 years reducing Latino cancer.
Redes has generated more than $200 million in funding for cancer research, trained more than 200 students and health professionals and conducted more than 2,000 community education events and developed bilingual educational materials and PSAs.
Watch a stirring video here or below about the program’s achievements among Latinos. Then join us!
Also, watch the program’s six new PSAs touting Latino cancer prevention in English or Spanish here. To request broadcast-quality formats of the PSAs, email us at saludtoday@uthscsa.edu.
Darker skin doesn’t mean melanoma immunity
Jul 22nd
From ZUMA Press, via mnn.com
Melanoma is on the rise among certain groups of dark-skinned Floridians, new research shows, Reuters reports.
The study isn’t sure why but does provide an important main message: ”Just because you have darker skin pigmentation, whether you’re Hispanic or black, does not make you immune to skin cancer,” Dr. Robert S. Kirsner of the University of Miami told Reuters Health.
Melanoma remains much rarer among blacks and Hispanics than among whites, which helps explain why public health efforts to prevent melanoma chiefly target the light-skinned.
In the current study, for example, in 2004 there were about 26 cases of melanoma diagnosed for every 100,000 persons per year among U.S. whites, compared to 4 cases for Hispanics and less than 1 case for non-Hispanic blacks.
Nevertheless, non-whites with melanoma are diagnosed later, and are thus actually more likely to die from the disease, Kirsner and his team point out in the Archives of Dermatology.
“It’s picked up later and a lot of this is really felt to be due to decreased detection and screening,” Dr. Melody Eide, a staff physician-scientist at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit who has studied ethnicity and melanoma but was not involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.
Read more here, including differences among Hispanics in Florida compared to the nation and other groups.
Colon Cancer Screening Rates Rise; Yet Latinos Least Likely to Get Screened
Jul 16th
Between 2006 and 2008, the percentage of adults ages 50-75 who had undergone screening for colorectal cancer with a method recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force rose from 51.9 percent to 62.9 percent, according to new CDC figures published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
During the same time period, the percentage of women ages 50-74 who had received a mammogram in the previous 2 years declined slightly, from 81.5 percent to 81.1 percent.
Adults ages 50-59, Hispanics, and persons with lower income, less than a high school education, and without health insurance were least likely to have been screened for colorectal cancer.
Women ages 50-59, women with less than a high school education, American Indians and Alaskan Natives, women without health insurance, and those with an annual income of less than $15,000 were least likely to have received a mammogram.
The report highlights the need for evidence-based interventions to increase community cancer screening rates, such as those recommended in the CDC’s Guide to Community Preventive Services, concluded the authors. They also stressed the importance of physicians recommending screening services to their patients.
“The most common reason women give for not having a mammogram is that no one recommended the test,” they wrote. “Therefore, health care providers have the most important role in increasing the prevalence of up-to-date mammography among women in the United States.”
Cigarette Smoke Jolts Hundreds of Genes (from San Antonio Study of Mainly Mexican-American Population)
Jul 15th
From Reuters, 2008
A new study shows lighting up a cigarette changes a person’s gene activity across the body, a possible clue as to why smoking affects overall health—from heart disease to combating infections, LiveScience reports.
A research team from Australia and San Antonio, Texas, analyzed white blood cell samples of 1,240 mainly Mexican-American people, ages 16-94, who were participating in the San Antonio Family Heart Study.
They found that the 297 self-identified smokers in the group were more likely to have unusual patterns of “gene expression” related to tumor development, inflammation, virus elimination, cell death and more. A gene is expressed when it codes for a protein that then instructs, or kick-starts, a process in the body.
The study found cigarette smoke could alter the level of expression of 323 genes.
“On some levels, we were surprised by the extent of the influence exposure to cigarette smoke had on gene expression, especially considering we used such a simple measure of smoke exposure: smoker or non-smoker,” lead author Jac Charlesworth, a research fellow at the Menzies Research Institute Tasmania in Australia, told LiveScience.
On the other hand, doctors have long known that smoking worsens cancer risk overall, depresses immune systems and causes other problems.
Cigarette smoke contains more than 4,000 chemical compounds, some of them known carcinogens.
The researchers were able to find subjects by testing samples from people in an existing study of Mexican-American families. It’s likely that smoking would affect other ethnic groups the same way, the researchers wrote, but they could not be sure unless other ethnic groups were involved in the study.
Millions, Especially Latinos, Need Cancer Screening
Jul 13th
More than 22 million adults have not had screening tests for colon cancer, and more than 7 million women have not had a recent mammogram to screen for breast cancer as recommended, according to reports in a new monthly scientific publication called CDC Vital Signs.
About a third of people are not getting colon cancer screening, which can detect the disease early when it is most treatable. This could be because they don’t know they can get colon cancer, they don’t have insurance or a doctor (a more likely case among Latinos), or their doctor hasn’t recommended screening.
Some women are not getting mammograms as recommended. About one of five women between the ages of 50 and 74 has not had a mammogram in the past two years. Latinas get screened at an even less frequent rate.
The CDC reports suggests these efforts to help:
- Health departments can find out why some groups of people are not being screened, and create programs to solve these problems and increase screening.
- Doctors and other health care providers can tell patients who should be screened about test options, make sure patients who can’t afford tests know about free screening services in their area, and remind patients when a screening test is due.
- People can ask their doctor about getting screened, get screened as recommended, and see their doctor promptly if a screening test shows there might be a problem.
Latinos, please watch the PSAs here or below to see why breast and colon cancer screening is so important:
Free iTunes App: LIVESTRONG English/Spanish Dictionary of Cancer Terms
Jul 8th
The LIVESTRONG English-Spanish Dictionary of Cancer Terms by Springbox, Ltd., is available online as a free app from iTunes.
By downloading the dictionary app, individuals can find definitions for cancer-related terms in both English and Spanish, searching more than 6,000 definitions provided by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Users can switch views between languages to facilitate translation.
No Internet access is required for use of the app, a joint project of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and NCI.
NEW VIDEO: Latinas, See Why a Mammogram Could Save Your Life
Jun 28th
Latinas, even if you’ve heard it before, please listen: Cancer screening can save your life.
To see why, watch our new dramatic PSA where a Latino family with a history of breast cancer discusses the importance of getting a mammogram that can detect breast cancer early, when it’s most treatable:
Watch in Spanish here. Please leave a comment on how you liked the PSA.
For cancer info, call 1-800-4-CANCER.
Latino Cancer Fact Sheets & Resources
Jun 8th
Here’s a collection of some of the newest information and resources on Latino cancer:
Spanish-Language Health Resource
On its Web site, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) offers an Información en español section and a variety of consumer materials and other health tools in Spanish on topics such as quality of care, surgery, diseases, quitting smoking, and prescriptions.
Bilingual Consumer Health Information
Numerous agencies, organizations, associations, and book and video distributors provide consumer health information in Spanish. The Web site of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine offers a sampling of sources of bilingual information. The list contains resources originating from the U.S.
Hispanic Demographic Fact Sheets
There are differences across the 10 major U.S. Hispanic population groups, such as citizenship (by birth or naturalization) and English proficiency. They are also vary by age, tend to live in different areas of the country, and have varying levels of education, home ownership rates and poverty rates. These and other characteristics are explored in fact sheets (one for each country-of-origin group) produced by the Pew Hispanic Center, using data from the 2008 American Community Survey.