Health Outcomes in a Foreign Land

Disease-specific disparities of the African diaspora.- The genetic basis to health disparity.- The role of epigenetics.- Economic factors and health.- Social determinants.- Behavior and health disparities.-  Health literacy deficits.- The impact of culture.-   Psychological issues and how they affect disparities.- Gene-environment interactions in health disparities.-  Race, a biological or social concept.- Translating health disparities. 

Bernard Kwabi-Addo, PhD, is an associate professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Principal Investigator of the Prostate Cancer Research Laboratory at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and an adjunct associate professor of Oncology at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, Maryland. His research work included receptor tyrosine kinase signaling in prostate cancer. More recently, Dr. Kwabi-Addo is investigating the role of epigenetic changes in prostate cancer etiology/progression with an emphasis on understanding the contribution of epigenetic changes as well as gene-environmental interaction in cancer disparities.
Dr. Kwabi-Addo graduated from Queen Mary and Westfield College at University of London (where he received a PhD studying site-directed gene targeting in mammalian cells using the bacteriophage Cre-loxP recombination system as a tool) and University College London in England, and University of Dundee in Scotland. He trained at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, in cancer biology, specifically in prostate cancer research. Dr. Kwabi-Addo has published scientific articles in journals including Nature Genetics, PNAS, Cancer Research, Prostate, and Epigenetics. His book, Cancer Causes and Controversies: Understanding Risk Reduction and Prevention, was published by Praeger in 2011. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, Gertrude, a financial analyst, and their three sons, Benjamin, Joshua, and David.

"This is a multilayered, interdisciplinary survey of genetic and non-genetic influences on health inequities, mainly among Americans of African descent. ... it is a highly readable epidemiological synopsis from an under-represented viewpoint - that of a recent West African immigrant confronting a country founded by immigrants. As such, it offers a new, potential source of insights." (Fatimah Jackson, nature.com, July, 2018)