June 2018 Newsletter

The OCHE ECHO

June 2018 Edition

Directors Corner: Celebrating Juneteenth,

Promoting Health Equity

This year, Wake Forest Baptist Health (WFBH) was a presenting sponsor of the 2018 Winston-Salem Juneteenth Festival, and OCHE was proud to be there advocating for cancer equity. OCHE had tables both inside and outside with cancer health information presented in fun ways including breast models to educate women on self-exams and a wheel of fortune game with tobacco facts. The collaborative effort between WFBH and the community was well received and widespread with over 1,000 in attendance.

Juneteenth or “Freedom Day” commemorates the abolition of slavery in the U.S. The name comes from June 19th, the date in 1865 on which slaves in southwest Texas finally learned of their emancipation by a proclamation made 2 years earlier. While slaves were technically freed, their continued oppression and marginalization created a socioeconomic environment that directly correlates to health disparities in African-American’s today.

The long-term physical effects of the trauma of slavery are difficult to

Thank you to the amazing volunteers for helping us out! From left to right: Tamika Moore, Robin Petro, Paige Brooke Holler, and Alma Hairston.

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analyze due to medical mistrust stemming from the misguided and unethical legacy left by research such as Tuskegee, radiation experiments , and the Eugenics program. Mistrust will continue until these injustices are appropriately acknowledged. However, since Juneteenth emphasizes education and achievement, this issue of the ECHO will focus on the importance of developing inclusive research programs and OCHE’s mission to educate communities about equity in cancer research.

The Role of Research in Achieving Health Equit y

Despite the disproportionate cancer burden in the African-American community there is inadequate representation of blacks and other racial/ethnic minorities in cancer research. This makes it difficult to understand the biologic basis for any disparities that exist. One way to improve recruitment is to design studies that are more inclusive or that ask questions relevant to specific populations. Researchers also need to design studies for “real world” populations and stop excluding patients who have certain diseases or comorbidities, particularly when those diseases are concentrated in communities of color.

Studies have shown that racial/ethnic minorities and other underserved populations, such as those living in rural areas and the poor, are less likely to be recruited into research studies. However, having diverse representation in cancer clinical trials is vital to understand whether treatments work the same biologically in each population and to address any barriers to care that exist due to geography or poverty.

OCHE is committed to gaining a better understanding of the barriers and disparities that exist in cancer research. It is our hope that the voices of ALL patients are heard, and that everyone can benefit from advances in cancer care.

Kelsey Shore

In an effort to work towards the goal of furthering cancer disparity research, OCHE welcomed Kelsey Shore into the inaugural role of Community Research Coordinator in April 2018. Kelsey is a Certified Clinical Research Coordinator with experience conducting both industry and investigator-initiated clinical trials across the institution. She brings a wealth of research knowledge as well as a passion for patient education, advocacy, and health equality to OCHE.

Kelsey is also experienced in qualitative research methods and is passionate about hearing and capturing patients’ voices and needs. Building relationships and forging new partnerships both within the institution and the local community will be crucial to her role as she works to grow and develop OCHE’s research portfolio and to help disseminate important research findings to the community.

PEP

While Kelsey will work on many research projects, one example of the type of work she is doing is the Patient Experience Protocol: A Pilot Study of Underserved Populations at the Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest University (PI: Ruiz). This study collects demographic and clinical information from several underserved populations receiving care at the CCC, including: Hispanics, African

Americans, young adults, rural, and uninsured patients. The survey also assess many other important domains such as: patient-provider communication, quality and satisfaction of care, medical mistrust, medical decision making, perceived needs of patients, as well as knowledge and perception of clinical trials.

The data we collect from this pilot study will assist in future program development, intervention design, and community education. With the addition of Kelsey to OCHE, several new research studies with an emphasis on cancer disparities and under-served populations will soon be under way!

Dr. Jimmy Ruiz

Dr. Ruiz is an Associate Professor of Hematology and Oncology and is the Assistant Director of Cancer Health Equity at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. He holds a joint appointment at the Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center in Salisbury, NC where he is the Chief of the Section on Oncology and Hematology. His educational and research interest is in cancer disparities. He has been involved in many clinical trials and has been vital to the development of the cancer clinical research program at the VA. Additionally, he developed a new cancer care model for veterans from rural communities. He received an operational grant from the Office of Rural Health to develop and implement a rural oncology specialty care model.