When Tomi Akinyemiju applied for one of her first jobs in the U.S., she found it odd that the application asked her to check a box to indicate her race.
In Nigeria, where she had lived since she was 3 years old, she never had to think about her race. “Why does it matter what race I am?” she thought.
As it turns out, it matters a lot.
“The more time I spent in the United States, the more I understood that there are complex historical, structural and systemic factors that shape everyday interactions,” she said.
Race, and how people are treated differently because of it, also has profound implications for health and well-being. Take cancer, for example. While cancer deaths have decreased in the United States overall, Blacks are still dying of the disease at higher rates than whites.
Akinyemiju (pronounced Ah-keen-yah-MEE-jew) wants to understand why, despite steady improvements in cancer prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment, these disparities persist.
An epidemiologist by training, her research looks at the biological and social factors driving cancer outcomes in the United States and across the globe, trying to understand why some groups of people fare worse than others, and what can be done to close the gap.
Among other things, her research suggests that not everyone living with cancer receives the same quality care.
Access to cancer care isn’t just about a person’s finances, or insurance status, or whether there are specialized treatment centers nearby, said Akinyemiju, who is a professor of population health sciences, global health and ob/gyn. “There are other dimensions at play, things related to comfort, empathy, respect and communication” between patients and providers.
“As a society, we need to have tough conversations about access to quality care, and collectively come up with solutions so that having a cancer diagnosis does not become a death sentence for the most vulnerable members of our society,” she said.
