Diversity, equity, inclusion are ‘key ingredients’ in addressing cancer care disparities
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Fox Chase Cancer Center has appointed Camille Ragin, PhD, MPH, as the new associate director of diversity, equity and inclusion.
“This new role is a new opportunity for me to extend the work that I am already doing in my career and to help make an impact at my institution. This is an opportunity to have a broader view and the capacity to be able to do things that will impact the populations that are more negatively affected by cancer. The lack of diversity and inclusion are some of the challenges related to health inequities,” Ragin, who also serves as professor in the cancer prevention and control research program, said during an interview with Healio.
![“We have to remember that getting information is a two-way street … the community helps us by partnering to provide us with information, and [we give] back to the community so they also benefit.” - Camille Ragin, PhD, MPH](/~/media/slack-news/hemonc/content-bundles/resource-centers/women-in-oncology/2022/hot_wio0322ragin_graphic_01_web.jpg?w=800)
“I am very passionate about trying to do my part in increasing health equity among Black populations, and I recognize that this is a gigantic and very complex issue that we must solve,” Ragin added. “Working together with like-minded scientists who are also similarly passionate about addressing these concerns is how we will get answers and make an impact on the health of these populations.”
Ragin spoke with Healio about the importance of this work on diversity, equity and inclusion; how her career has shaped her for this role; and some of the challenges she is working to overcome in this space.
Healio: What is the importance of your work on diversity, equity and inclusion?
Ragin: We all know there are disparities in the context of cancer and in health in general and there are many contributing factors to these disparities. Most of the time, diversity, equity and inclusion are the key ingredients in trying to address disparities that exist. There are populations and communities that do not have the best experience in equitable treatment or equitable lifestyles. There is also lack of inclusion and underrepresentation of some communities and populations in research.
This lack of diversity when it comes to science and research really contributes to or perpetuates disparities in overall health outcomes. This is the reason why the work in diversity, equity and inclusion is so important and critical.
Healio: How has your career thus far prepared you for this role?
Ragin: My past and current research has been focused on cancer disparities that affect populations of African descent, with a specific focus on examining why Black individuals have the highest cancer incidence, death rates and shortest survival for various cancer types compared with all other racial and ethnic groups.
My career has involved everything there is about diversity and equity. As a cancer epidemiologist, the focus of my work has been driven by inequities in cancer outcomes that I have seen and continue to see, most of which can be explained by a lack of representative research that does not always benefit everyone everywhere (this is a diversity and inclusion issue). I am very passionate about racial disparities and in particular disparities as it relates to populations of African ancestry. Since graduating with my PhD and starting to build my career, I have paid close attention to these disparities and have worked to be purposeful in trying to address these disparities through research. Being immersed in the field of health equity research or health disparities-related research in and of itself prepares me for the role because it represents who I am.
Over the years I have been able to accomplish quite a bit in addressing limitations as they relate to diversity in science through mentoring underrepresented minority students and faculty members. With the research that I am conducting, I am also addressing the inequities that contribute to poor health outcomes. Then the inclusion component has a lot to do with ensuring that everyone has a seat at the table. It is all about how my science is driven, and so I’ve done that quite a bit in my own research career.
Healio: What are some of the challenges that you will work to overcome?
Ragin: The fact that there’s a lot to be done in this space is a challenge. Because my role has more of an institution-wide focus, there may be some barriers that I may experience where perhaps some individuals may not necessarily understand the concept and importance of diversity, equity and inclusion, or they may not necessarily feel that it is necessary to focus on those aspects. We all have to acknowledge that those views may exist, but we can do our best to get around it by continuing to educate and have that conversation so that people have a more clear understanding of why this is so important and why this actually impacts all of us, not just certain populations.
Healio: Can you talk about The African Caribbean Cancer Consortium that you founded, as well as the Cancer Prevention Project of Philadelphia? What is your ultimate hope for both?
Ragin: The consortium was designed unlike any other. Most consortia are designed to focus on a specific research question, a problem or a cancer type, and everyone in the consortium works toward that one goal. The African Caribbean Cancer Consortium is designed differently. The focus is around collaboration and figuring out how we work together to leverage different expertise and strengths. We aim to figure out how to collectively work to synergize our activities so that we can truly impact underserved populations. For this specific consortium, we are focusing on Black populations — Black individuals in the U.S., people of the Caribbean or persons from the continent of Africa.
The Cancer Prevention Project of Philadelphia [CAP3] is a multicultural, community-based cancer prevention registry that helps us gather the resources and information that we need from Black populations so that we can be more properly equipped to address issues around cancer disparities and prevention. Interestingly, it is designed not just as a research project but also in such a way that involves the engagement of our communities around the Philadelphia area.
We always recognize that there must be mutual benefits and, as researchers, many of us sometimes lose that perspective and instead think that ‘as long as I get my information, it’s all good.’ For us, we recognize that we have to remember that getting information is a two-way street — helping the community by collecting information or, rather, the community helps us by partnering to provide us with information, and giving back to the community so they also benefit. Within our community engagement opportunities, we have incorporated educational programs to help provide more information to the community as it relates to cancer prevention, to empower them. We also report back the research results that we have generated from the CAP3 study to participants. This is another way that the community gets to experience an opportunity where they have provided input in our science, and they are also gaining the benefit of the results from that input through our translation of the results back to them.
Another unique feature of CAP3 is that we are obviously enrolling Black populations in our communities, but we are also paying attention to the type of Black population that we have. What I mean by this is whether we are talking about African Americans or U.S.-born Black individuals or immigrants from Africa or from the Caribbean. We know that although these three subgroups share very common threads in terms of ancestry, there are distinct differences among them. There are differences culturally, behaviorally and in how they perceive health. If we are truly going to address health inequities and poor health outcomes among Black populations in the U.S., effective interventions have to consider those unique differences that exist within the Black subgroups. The CAP3 project allows us an opportunity to be able to understand the diversity that exists within Black subgroups, and it allows us to be more informed in how we can address cancer prevention in that specific population.
Healio: What are your plans for the $1.65 million grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation that you received?
Ragin: The Chan Zuckerberg Foundation award is a collaborative project and I am one of the principal investigators on the team. The project will allow us to contribute to a larger project that the foundation has ongoing — the Human Cell Atlas. They are working to catalog the genomic sequence of cells within the human body and generate genomic data from different types of cells from the body. The grant that we received will allow us to contribute diverse information to that larger project. We will sequence cells from Black men from Africa, the Caribbean and the U.S. who have prostate cancer and Black women who have breast cancer and healthy samples from the fallopian tube. This will add to the diverse information that we need to have when we are thinking about the human body and about all of the different cells that exist in the human body. We have been given the opportunity to add to that information.
It will also allow us to generate data that help us to interrogate African ancestry to try to better understand the genomic features related to African ancestry and how these genomic differences may play a role in gene expression. Understanding how genes are expressed differently based on genetic ancestry is important in the context of health. It will really help us to ask questions that have not been asked in other studies.
For more information:
Camille Ragin, PhD, MPH, can be reached at camille.ragin@fccc.edu.
Collapse
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts