The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities (CRCHD) hosted their annual Cancer Health Disparities Summit 2008 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, in Bethesda, Maryland, July 14 through the 16.

The overall theme for this year’s Summit was Eliminating Cancer Health Disparities Through Science, Training, and Community. Summit 08 was open to a wide range of audience members and approximately 400 people attended. As many as 200 different kinds of cancers were referenced.
”We’re here to celebrate the scientific gains of knowledge but also to realize there is so much that needs to be done, the gaps, and we need to address those gaps and realize that unless we do it who else will,” said Dr. Moon Chen, Associate Director for Disparities and Research, University of California-Davis (UC-Davis) Cancer Center.

According to Chen, the goal of the event was to enhance mutually beneficial interactions among CRCHD programs by sharing scientific knowledge and accomplishments within the last year on what has been done to eliminate cancer health disparities.

The three-day event highlighted the science of the programs and grantees funded through the CRCHD and brought together some of the nation’s top researchers and junior investigators who shared research knowledge on social, cultural and environmental influences as well as cancer prevention and outreach strategies.

“This is the first year that we have spent so much time on science,” said Chen. “We had presentations by various researchers on different aspects not only on population and outreach but also basic science as well as the clinical challenges and what happens with treatment of cancer among the different racial ethnic groups.”
Unlike most Americans, whose leading cause of death is heart disease, Chen said Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are the only US racial ethnic group for which Cancer is the leading cause of death.

For example, a Vietnamese woman experiences cervical cancer at approximately 8 times the rate of white women and we believe it's due to a variety of reasons including lifestyle, culture, social economic and linguistic reasons, he said.

“Asian's come from a cultural background where, we don't think we have to do anything if we're all feeling well,” Chen said. “The concept of preventive health care, the concept of prevention, as opposed to treatment, is foreign to us. So that's an example of a social cultural factor that we must remove.”

Chen said language and culture barriers are just some of the challenges when it comes to this disease. Other challenges include, “Ignorance and perceptions of fate. Many people don't want to find out whether they have the disease,” Chen said. “As a result, checkups that could help look for problems related to Cancer are avoided.

African Americans, Hispanic Americans and American Indians/Alaska Natives also face the same challenge, he said.
As a result, the CRCHD is central to NCI’s efforts to reduce the unequal burden of cancer in our society and to train the next generation of competitive researchers in cancer and cancer health disparities research.
To learn more about the 2008 Summit visit http://www.cancermeetings.org/CHDSummit08.

The CRCHD is central to NCI’s efforts to reduce the unequal burden of cancer in our society and to train the next generation of competitive researchers in cancer and cancer health disparities research.
The summit shared evidence-based prevention, screening, treatment, and survivorship interventions from the Community Networks Program (CNP), Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences (CURE), Minority Institution and Cancer Center Partnerships (MICCP) and Patient Navigation Research Program (PNRP).