Social and Environmental Determinants of Breast Cancer Survivorship: The Black Breast Cancer Survivors Intervention - PROJECT SUMMARY
I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Chapman University, and adjunct Assistant Professor at City of Hope
(COH) Comprehensive Cancer Center. I have expertise in health disparities, community engagement, and
community-based participatory research including advocacy; cancer and cancer health disparities; cancer
survivorship and clinic-based interventions. However, I have not developed, implemented, or analyzed a
multi-level community-based intervention for Black breast cancer survivors. Black women face disparities
in all stages of the cancer continuum and their survivorship needs remain unmet. Current research on endocrine
disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in hair products indicate an increased risk and recurrence of breast cancer for Black
women. There is also a dearth of psychosocial interventions that address the unique needs of Black breast
cancer survivors. Behavioral interventions for this population lack content on identity, hair care, and harmful
environmental exposures. Interventions are urgently needed for Black breast cancer survivors to address their
unique survivorship journeys and reduce harmful environmental exposures during survivorship. My goals are to
develop, implement and disseminate community-based interventions that improve quality of life (QOL) and
address health behaviors related to Black identity that contribute to disparities affecting cancer risk and
survivorship. As a first step towards these broad goals, with this K01 proposal, I seek to develop and evaluate
an intervention to improve QOL and reduce adverse chemical exposures of EDCs found in personal care
products of Black breast cancer survivors, post-treatment. The proposed career development and training plan
support my trajectory toward becoming an independent, community-based implementation scientist with a focus
on cancer health disparities through training and experience in 1) Designing community-based multi-level
interventions; 2) Assessing environmental exposures in a community-based multi-level intervention; and
3) Using implementation science to evaluate community-based interventions for Black women. This
project will take place at Chapman University with mentors who are experts in training and mentoring K01
trainees and assessing the psychological, biological and social influences on women’s health outcomes
(Primary: Laura Glynn, PhD, Chapman University); randomized intervention designs (Co-Mentor: Virginia Sun,
PhD, RN, COH); clinical implications of intervention design for Black breast cancer survivors (Co-Mentor: Abenaa
Brewster, MD, MHS, MD Anderson); environmental exposures (Advisor: Robin Dodson, ScD, Silent Spring
Institute); and dissemination and implementation science (Co-Mentor: Robert Newton, PhD, Pennington
Biomedical).
