Community Cancer Community and Practice ColoradoSPH at CU Anschutz Worker Health
The Center of Health Work and Environment (CHWE) at the Colorado School of Public Health (ColoradoSPH) proudly announces the launch of WeCanWork (Well-Being and Cancer at Work), an innovative program designed to provide comprehensive support to cancer patients as they balance work responsibilities and treatment.
Research Cancer ColoradoSPH at CU Anschutz
A cancer diagnosis presents an immediate threat to an individual’s health and a challenge to survive the disease. For many people, cancer also undermines their financial stability. While medicine’s capacity for treating the disease has marched steadily forward, the ability of patients to pay for new and often staggeringly expensive therapies has not kept pace.
Research Cancer Community Health
The Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network (CPCRN) has published a supplemental issue of Cancer Causes and Control to mark the Network’s 20th anniversary. As one of the Network Centers since 2019, the Colorado-based CPCRN site in the Rocky Mountain Prevention Research Center (RMPRC) at the Colorado School of Public Health played an integral part of in the writing and release of this supplement.
Research Cancer ColoradoSPH at CU Anschutz Environment
The American Cancer Society, the largest non-government, not-for-profit funding source of cancer research in the United States, has approved funding for 42 research grants nationwide totaling $33.8M, including one grant in Denver. Grant applications undergo a rigorous, independent, and highly competitive peer review process. The newly approved grants will fund investigators at 33 institutions across the United States, including the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Grant-funded projects will begin on July 1, 2021.
The Colorado School of Public Health is one of four new Collaborating Centers to join the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network (CPCRN) in Cycle 5 of the Network, spanning from 2019-2024. Led by Betsy Risendal, PhD, and Project Director, Emily Bilenduke, BA, the Colorado School of Public Health is presently comprised of nine investigators participating in seven CPCRN projects, in addition to center-specific involvement in local core projects dedicated to understanding and advancing risk-based cancer prevention and control strategies.
Dr. Risendal, Associate Professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health, is the lead investigator on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Prevention Research Center (PRC) Special Interest Project (SIP), titled, "Cancer RESULTS (Resources, Engagement, and Support for the Use of Lifetime Tailored cancer prevention Services)." Dr. Risendal's SIP is one of the seven CPCRN projects.
Read the full interview on CPCRN.
Community Cancer Community and Practice ColoradoSPH at CU Anschutz Community Health
July 1, 2020 marked the start of another year of funding for the Colorado Cancer Screening Program (CCSP) for Patient Navigation but just like most things in 2020…it’s not just another year for the decade long program.
CCSP is a Program of the University of Colorado Cancer Center with faculty and staff leadership from the Colorado School of Public Health. CCSP supports the safety net clinics in Colorado to increase colorectal cancer screening and also expanded to lung cancer and hereditary cancer screening.
Keeping the funding for cancer prevention and control in Colorado was was harder this year amidst a pandemic. CCSP is funded through the Cancer Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Grants Disease Program (CCPD). In the 2019/2020 legislative session, as a state of fiscal emergency was declared, the program budget could have been dramatically reduced or completed defunded. For several years, CCSP has had to educate the public and legislature on the importance of cancer screening and advocate for funding as the CCPD funding source expanded to a broader portfolio of diseases or focus areas than when the grants program was established.
Research Cancer ColoradoSPH at CU Anschutz Health Systems Health Advocacy
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. While survival rates of lung cancer are low for all patients, rates are lower for Black patients, with a 15% five-year all-stages survival rate, compared to 18% for non-Hispanic whites. At diagnosis, Black and Hispanic patients are more often at an advanced stage compared to non-Hispanic whites. Research has shown that factors such as early detection, smoking, biology, environmental and societal factors contribute to these disparities.
Cancer Student and Alumni ColoradoSPH at CU Anschutz Community Health
After graduation, Reese Garcia, MPH ’17, hadn’t quite found her dream job yet, so she decided to get some help from the ColoradoSPH career services center. On her way in on the fateful day, she ran into a former boss, Andi Dwyer of the University of Colorado Cancer Center. Dwyer says she had seen a quiet leadership in Garcia as a graduate student, one that was highly effective at engaging people. That leadership led her to suggest that Garcia apply for a recent job opening at Fight Colorectal Cancer, a national advocacy and research organization Dwyer works closely with in her role as director of the Colorado Cancer Screening Program.
Research Cancer ColoradoSPH at CU Anschutz Community Health
According to a study led by Community and Behavioral Health alum Nicole Harty, MPH '16, and including Professor Sheana Bull and Senior Research Assistant Andrea Dwyer who is also director of the Colorado Cancer Screening Program, advertisements on popular social media sites can instigate people getting tested for cancer sooner.
Cancer Mental Health Latino Health
The Colorado School of Public Health has been named a recipient of a $1.9 million grant to address mental health disparities in low-income, uninsured and under-insured Coloradans who are suffering from lung, head and neck cancers. The grant is part of $152.8 million in grants that were recently allocated by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Board of Governors to support studies covering a range of conditions and problems that impose high burdens on patients, caregivers, and the healthcare system.
Colorado Public Radio
July 15, 2024
Among health experts, the jury is still out on THC, CBD and the use of marijuana in general, as those in medical and research fields weigh the benefits and risks. "This is the big challenge with cannabis: How do we facilitate the beneficial medical applications, allow for what society has determined is acceptable recreational use and also guard against the very real harms?" Gregory Tung, Ph.D., an associate professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, tells USA TODAY. "This is difficult and will likely require a mix of policy, rules, regulations and education."
USA Today
July 09, 2024
Among health experts, the jury is still out on THC, CBD and the use of marijuana in general, as those in medical and research fields weigh the benefits and risks. "This is the big challenge with cannabis: How do we facilitate the beneficial medical applications, allow for what society has determined is acceptable recreational use and also guard against the very real harms?" Gregory Tung, Ph.D., an associate professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, tells USA TODAY. "This is difficult and will likely require a mix of policy, rules, regulations and education."
Colorado Public Radio
July 02, 2024
Cases of highly pathogenic avian flu cases in Colorado dairy cows keep rising, with numbers from a federal website recording the state as having more cases than any other. Public health experts said they’re watching to see if infections spillover from cattle to humans and then human to human. “I think it's an important time for public health to be watching this really closely,” said Elizabeth Carlton, an epidemiologist at the Colorado School of Public Health. “Concern for the general public is pretty low right now,” she said.
The Denver Post
July 02, 2024
Colorado, along with much of the country, is experiencing a summer bump in COVID-19 infections, showing the virus has yet to fall into a seasonal pattern. Common respiratory bugs typically start spreading in the fall and peter out by spring. In Colorado, the worst points of the pandemic fell in the fall and winter, but COVID-19 hasn’t disappeared in the warmer months, as flu does. Four years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, scientists expected the virus would be well on its way to settling into a seasonal pattern by now, said Talia Quandelacy, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health.
Colorado School of Public Health
