Woodruff Health Sciences Center

Cancer still takes far too much from far too many, but thanks to advances in prevention, early detection, and treatment, more people than ever before are surviving the disease long-term. It's easy to attribute these gains solely to the discoveries being made in laboratories and clinical settings. But cancer is a complex adversary, and the worldwide fight against it has been so successful because it encompasses a wide variety of disciplines—including social and behavioral sciences, statistics, and marketing.

Some of the features in this issue of Emory Public Health highlight a few of the many ways in which faculty in the Rollins School of Public Health are advancing our understanding of cancer's causes and prevention, as well as some of the active steps they're taking through education and outreach to help people worldwide reduce their risk. Alumna Alpa Patel directs the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study, CPS-3, which follows more than 300,000 volunteers in order to identify lifestyle factors that increase cancer risk. Associate Professor Carla Berg is exploring ways to use the tobacco industry's own marketing methods against it—by employing strategic marketing techniques to convince young smokers to quit.

These groundbreaking efforts, along with many others being pioneered across the Woodruff Health Sciences Center, are immeasurably valuable to our continued progress against cancer and to our ability to provide help and hope to the people whose lives cancer touches.

S. Wright Caughman, MD
Executive Vice President for
Health Affairs, Emory University
CEO, Woodruff Health Sciences Center