Hybrid Colloquium – Advancing Cancer Health Equity through Community Engagement and Patient Navigation across the Continuum of Care

Biography: Dr. Derek Falk, PhD, MSW, is a postdoctoral research fellow in the T32 training program in Cancer Prevention and Control at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. His research focuses on supportive care services across the cancer continuum to improve outcomes for underserved populations. He examines the role of patient navigation to increase timely cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment in Hispanic/Latino and rural populations. Dr. Falk received his MSW from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and his PhD in Social Work from the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. Funded by the American Cancer Society, Dr. Falk evaluated navigation and screening outcomes in the largest study to date of a cancer education and patient navigation intervention in rural and border areas of the US. This study has yielded several presentations, awards, and publications. In his current role, he is working on a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded study cancer center supplement grant examining forgone care due to cost in among rural cancer survivors in the Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center catchment area. He was awarded a grant from the Geographic Management of Cancer Health Disparities Program, Region 1-South, to examine the impact of patient navigation on enrollment in clinical trials among Hispanic/Latino cancer patients. He plans to study the impact of the Affordable Care Act on forgone care among US cancer survivors using National Health Interview Survey data.