Investing in Public Health Education
How Marcia Tan, Ph.D., is Changing the Game Against Cancer by Partnering with Community Health Workers
The V Foundation for Cancer Research is committed to funding bold, innovative research dedicated to accelerating Victory Over Cancer® and saving lives. This research can happen anywhere. For some, its inside a lab with advanced technology creating models and forecasting how tumors react. For Marcia Tan, Ph.D., research is happening directly in her local community.
Dr. Tan, an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center, is a clinical psychologist and epidemiologist. The focus of her team’s research is simply how human behavior influences health – specifically in lung cancer patients.
“I’m interested in how people behave,” Dr. Tan said. “[There is research] where we discover new drugs and where we discover how tumors work. But, if you are trying to get people to take those drugs, you have to think about how you are engaging with people for them to understand what is going on with their bodies and understand medicine.”
Supported by the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund, Dr. Tan’s research focuses on tobacco use, as lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. Dr. Tan partners with community health workers, healthcare providers and nurses, to innovate how patients, especially those in underserved populations, receive information about the risk factors that affect their long term health. This work creates a bridge between complex medical research and the general public, ensuring that education and care are more accessible to all!
“My research is game-changing because I’m really trying to think about changing the framework of how we are delivering treatment to people, especially those who are underserved,” Dr. Tan said. “A lot of the research focuses on physicians in the clinic, nurses, health care providers, but I am trying to get people to understand that community health workers are a key, crucial workforce that is part of this. They’re really part of how we are going to support people and how we’re going to care for people. In doing so, we need to build capacity and support them so they can better support people to live well.”
Dr. Tan is thankful for the investment made in her research by the V Foundation. Since 1993, the V Foundation has funded over $458 million in cancer research grants to the best of the best scientists, like Dr. Tan.
“Two things come to mind when I think about what makes the V Foundation stand out from other charities. One: The V Foundation understands that cancer is not one disease, and so the funding needs to reflect that, and the V Foundation is very intentional about funding research across the cancer continuum to really fight this. Two: The V Foundation is really investors, so donors who donate to the V Foundation are investing in researchers, so the money goes to supporting scientists like me to build our labs and build our research careers to really fight cancer in the long run.”
