Lecture on Cultural Competence in Health Care
Marjorie Kagawa-Singer, PhD, RN, MN, a UCLA researcher studying disparities in health care outcomes of ethnic minorities with cancer, will present the Fourth Annual Christopher N.H. Jenkins Cancer Control Award Lecture on Monday, Jan. 24, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Ambulatory Care Building, 400 Parnassus Avenue, Room A 455.
The title of her talk is "Cultural Competence - Fact or Fiction?" The lecture is sponsored by the Asian American Network for Cancer Awareness, Research, and Training (AANCART) and the Vietnamese Community Health Promotion Project.
Kagawa-Singer is an associate professor in the UCLA School of Public Health and Asian American Studies Department. She has a master's degree in nursing and master's and doctoral degrees in anthropology from UCLA. Her clinical work and research has been in oncology, focusing upon the disparities in physical and mental health care outcomes of ethnic minority populations with cancer, primarily with the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
Kagawa-Singer serves on multiple local, state, and national committees addressing issues of ethnicity and health care, and has published and lectured extensively on cross-cultural issues in health, cancer, pain, grief and bereavement, end of life decision-making, and quality of life. Her current cancer research includes intervention studies to promote mammography in Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander women, quality of life, spirituality, and doctor/patient communication with Hispanic, African American, and Asian American women post-breast and cervical cancer. She also focuses on defining and developing standards of cultural competence in health care.
Kagawa-Singer is also co-principal investigator of the Los Angeles site of the NCI-funded AANCART grant, the CDC-funded REACH 2010 "PATH for Women" grant, a UCLA EXPORT Center of Excellence to eliminate health disparities, and the NCI- funded Minority Training Program for Cancer Control Research. She is also PI on a California state grant to conduct a formative study on the promotion of fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity, and co-PI for an NCI-funded supplement focusing on Energy Balance for the Hmong population in California.
The Christopher N.H. Jenkins Cancer Control Award is named after the former executive director of the UCSF Vietnamese Community Health Promotion Project (VCHPP), co-founded by Jenkins and Stephen McPhee, UCSF professor of medicine. Prior to his death in 2001, Jenkins devoted 16 years of his life to improving the health of Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans through cancer control, including promotion of breast and cervical cancer screening, promotion of hepatitis B catch-up vaccination, and reduction of tobacco use in this population. In memory of his work and in conjunction with Jenkins' family, AANCART created the Cancer Control Award in 1999 to be given to an individual for outstanding contributions to cancer prevention/control research and education for Asian Americans. The award recipient is announced at the annual National AANCART Cancer Control Academy and is given a stipend to travel and lecture nationally on the topic of his or her expertise.
For more information about the award and awardees, please visit the VCHPP's website. If you have any questions or wish to donate to the award fund, contact Thoa Nguyen via email or call 415/476-0557.
Dinner will be served dinner prior to the Jan. 24 lecture and seating is limited. Those interested in attending should RSVP to Nguyen, or call 415/476-0557.