LARRY KUSHI, SCD
Associate Director for Etiology and Prevention Research
Kaiser Permanente Division of Research
LARRY MEREDITH, PHD & THE COMMUNITY EPIDEMIOLOGY TEAM
Director, County of Marin Health and Human Services

The 2007 Community Breast Cancer Research Award was given to two separate organizations that actively participate in community-based research projects with Zero Breast Cancer.

Dr. Kushi is the principal investigator in two breast cancer research studies with Zero Breast Cancer. The CYGNET study is looking at puberty in young girls, focusing on early life exposures that may influence breast cancer risk later in life. The Pathways study examines survivorship in women with breast cancer and the factors that may be associated with recurrence rates, survival rates, and better prognosis. Dr. Kushi nicknamed these two projects his "breast cancer bookend studies," because between each study, a more comprehensive portion of the life span is taken into account to broaden the spectrum of what we know about breast cancer.

Larry discovered epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. His interests started in nutrition and coronary disease and evolved into cancer and then more specifically, breast cancer. After working for several years at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, he was lured to Northern California specifically to take a position at Kaiser Permanente as head of the epidemiology group.

In a distinguished career full of accomplishments, the thing that Larry is most proud of was serving as the Chair of the American Cancer Society's Committee on Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines for Cancer Prevention in 2006.

Larry Meredith, PhD initiated a community-focused approach in 2006 to studying breast cancer in Marin County. Concerned about the high breast cancer rates in Marin, the Department of Health and Human Services launched the Marin Women's Study to help better understand why breast cancer risks do not affect all women the same way.

Larry Meredith leads the County's Community Epidemiology team, which includes: Rochelle Ereman, MS, MPH, Program Manager and Principal Investigator; Kathy Koblick, MPH, Project Coordinator; and Lee Ann Prebil, PhD, Mark Powell, MD, MPH, and Chris Corniola, MPH, epidemiologists.

The Marin Women's Study is gathering data about risk factors, biological factors, and breast health to better understand how they are associated with breast cancer. It is the first prospective study in Marin County to link individual risk factors with biospecimens and breast cancer outcomes.

This study is a community effort with collaboration from the Marin Cancer Institute, University of California San Francisco, Buck Institute for Age Research, Kaiser Permanente San Rafael Medical Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Zero Breast Cancer, the Northern California Cancer Center, and many local community groups and community members.