Addressing Emerging Breast Cancer Disparities in Asian American Populations: The CRANE Study & The ASPIRE Cohort Study

Recently, it has been shown that breast cancer incidence rates have been increasing rapidly among Asian American and Pacific Islander women, with particularly large increases seen among younger women. The CRANE Study, led by UCSF, is designed to address this alarming trend, focusing on the role of established risk factors as well as aiming to identify potential new risk factors. The UCSF team is also launching a new study, the ASPIRE Cohort Study, the first Asian American cohort study for cancer etiology. Dr. Gomez will present the most current data on breast cancer incidence trends for disaggregated AAPI ethnic groups, and rationale and information regarding the CRANE and ASPIRE studies.

Dr. Scarlett Lin Gomez is a Professor and Vice Chair for Faculty Development in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UCSF, and Co-Leader of the Cancer Control Program of the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is an epidemiologist with research interests in the role of social determinants of health, including race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, immigration status, sociocultural factors, and neighborhood contextual characteristics, on health outcomes. Much of this research is focused specifically on Asian populations. She is also Director of the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry, a part of the California Cancer Registry and the NCI Surveillance Epidemiology End Results (SEER) Program. She has contributed surveillance data regarding cancer incidence and outcome patterns and trends for distinct Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander groups, as well as cancer patterns by nativity status and neighborhood characteristics.