PHILADELPHIA (November 26, 2018) – Camille Ragin, PhD, MPH, associate professor in the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center, has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the amount of $3.3 million to study cancer and cardiovascular disease risk (CVD) in Caribbean countries.
The leadership team includes Ragin at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Dr. Marshall Tulloch-Reid, Epidemiologist and Endocrinologist at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica and Dr. Kimlin Ashing, Behavioral Scientist at the City of Hope Cancer Center.
“Cancer and CVD continue to be the leading causes of death in the Caribbean region,” said Ragin. “This grant will further our work toward the goal of reducing the burden of these largely preventable diseases in the Caribbean.”
In 2017, Ragin earned a grant from the NIH to create a center of research excellence at the University of the West Indies to focus on cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. It was the first step toward developing a broader network of Caribbean centers of excellence, which will increase research collaboration to address these diseases throughout the region. Since one in ten Blacks living in the US are foreign born and Caribbean nationals make up more than 50 percent of the Non-Hispanic Black immigrant population in the US, Ragin’s efforts in the Caribbean also supports US-Caribbean comparative studies to address cancer disparities affecting US Blacks.
Ragin founded and leads the African-Caribbean Cancer Consortium (AC3). This
NIH-funded center builds and extends strong partnerships to further the study of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental cancer risk among persons of African ancestry.
