Sora Tanjasiri
University of California-Irvine, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Cancer does not strike all communities equally. In Orange County, California, nearly two-thirds of residents come from ethnically diverse groups, 30% were born abroad, and poverty is far higher among Latino, Vietnamese, African American, Korean and Chinese residents than among non-Hispanic Whites.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
cancer health disparities
cancer health equity
community outreach
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Identify and describe the cancer burden across Orange County's diverse populations through cancer monitoring, as part of the UC Irvine cancer center's Community Outreach and Engagement program.
- Partner with community leaders, clinics and community-based organizations to deliver evidence-based outreach education on social, behavioral and environmental cancer risks, including through the California HPV Vaccination Roundtable.
- Help communities take part in cancer research using community-based participatory research, an approach in which community members help shape studies, working with the center's Community Equity Board.
- Detect genetic and gene-activity differences tied to triple negative breast cancer risk in African American women by lipid profiling and DNA and RNA sequencing of paired tumor and nearby normal tissue samples.
- Examine differences in ovarian cancer death rates and treatment patterns among Asian subgroups through an epidemiological study of population data.
- Train 38 undergraduate and master's students at Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine in cancer health disparities research through jointly run pilot projects.
More about the research
This work asks how to measure these gaps in cancer burden, reach affected communities with prevention and education, and build a research workforce that can study and reduce cancer health disparities. Two projects fit together here: a community outreach program for the county's main cancer center, and a research and training partnership between two universities.
Why it matters
Low-income and immigrant communities in Orange County, including Latino, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese and African American residents, carry an uneven share of cancer burden. Tracking that burden and delivering culturally fitting outreach could improve prevention efforts, such as HPV vaccination. The pilot studies may point to risk factors in African American women with triple negative breast cancer and treatment gaps for Asian women with ovarian cancer. Training students from diverse backgrounds aims to grow the cancer research workforce.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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University of Nebraska Medical Center, NE·Public Health & Epidemiology
Measure and monitor cancer incidence, mortality, risk factors, community needs and disparities across Nebraska's urban, rural and frontier counties over time.
The school
University of California-Irvine: 46 labs on PI Pages, $645M a year on research, 524 research doctorates a year.
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