Social and Environmental Determinants of Breast Cancer Survivorship: The Black Breast Cancer Survivors Intervention

NIH RePORTER · NIH · K01 · $123,893 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY or ABSTRACT I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. I have expertise in health disparities, community engagement, and community-based participatory research in the areas of cancer health disparities, cancer survivorship, and clinic-based interventions. However, I have not developed, implemented, or analyzed a multi-level community-based intervention for breast cancer survivors. Under-resourced people 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 these communities. There is also a dearth of psychosocial interventions that address the unique needs of breast cancer survivors. Behavioral interventions for this population lack content on cultural backgrounds, hair care, and harmful environmental exposures. Interventions are urgently needed for 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 backgrounds 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 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 under-resourced communities. This project will take place at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center with mentors who are experts in training and mentoring K01 trainees and assessing the psychological, biological and social influences on health outcomes (Primary: Laura Glynn, PhD, Chapman University); randomized intervention designs (Co-Mentors: Virginia Sun, PhD, RN, COH; Lorna McNeill, PhD, MPH, MD Anderson); clinical implications of intervention design for 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).

Key facts

NIH application ID
11251756
Project number
7K01MD018417-03
Recipient
UNIVERSITY OF TX MD ANDERSON CAN CTR
Principal Investigator
Dede K Teteh-Brooks
Activity code
K01
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2024
Award amount
$123,893
Award type
7
Project period
2023-09-01 → 2029-02-28