I have been a member of the CBHN for two years and I joined just after moving to California and beginning my role as Vice Chair for Research and Professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences. I also serve as Associate Director for Cancer Equity at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles, and I am the Director of the USC Choices Lab where we focus on community health outcomes, innovation, impact, and equity studies.

I was drawn to join the CBHN because we have a shared mission to address health disparities. For the last 25 years, I have been conducting research examining the various gaps in access to health care, high-quality health care, and the disparities in cancer mortality among different populations. The BHN focuses on health education, health policy, and connecting change makers and advocates for Black Californians. My research team and I are focused on the same goals!

As a health equity researcher, I have seen a variety of barriers to equal healthcare, across the entire care spectrum. There is a long history of communities of color living under separate and unequal systems in the U.S. We have documented, in our research, the social determinants of health, such as access to safe housing and transportation, financial strain, neighborhood safety, distance to green spaces among others, that are consistently difference for minority populations as compared to predominately white communities.

In our research, we seek to document inequity and to develop and test interventions that can make a difference in the health of Black Californians. A lot of health research focuses on exposing the causes of illness or aims to understand the mechanics of disease. In our population-level work, we have established and documented the disparities in health among Black and African American citizens, and now we are focused on action. For instance, at the cancer center, our outreach team created culturally tailored communications on cancer screening guidelines and clinical trials just for African Americans. We also are launching a community health navigation program, under our new Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Prevention. The work of our navigators will be focused on addressing social barriers to cancer screening and treatment, as we aim to reduce disparities in mortality for Black Californians.

What inspires me to do this work in health equity is seeing the differences in survival for Black and white citizens with cancer. Just look at prostate cancer, where the rate of survival for Black men is nearly half that of white men. The same is true for breast cancer, where Black women have a 40% lower survival rate. The rates of being diagnosed with cancer are not so different, but the rates of survival are glaringly different and so I am inspired to work toward solutions wherever I can move the needle in this area.

The bravest thing I’ve ever done was probably to move my life and my whole family to California from South Carolina! I have two teenage sons and it was a big change for all of us, but now that we are putting down roots here, I think it was all worth the challenge and stress.

The best advice I ever received was to focus on addressing the drivers that have the biggest impact on minority health and health disparities.  This has been my north star throughout my career and guided my professional activities and focal areas.

I’m excited to partner with CBHN on health equity in California!