Evolution of the "Drivers" of Translational Cancer Epidemiology: Analysis of Funded Grants and the Literature

Abstract

Concurrently with a workshop sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, we identified key “drivers” for accelerating cancer epidemiology across the translational research continuum in the 21st century: emerging technologies, a multilevel approach, knowledge integration, and team science. To map the evolution of these “drivers” and translational phases (T0–T4) in the past decade, we analyzed cancer epidemiology grants funded by the National Cancer Institute and published literature for 2000, 2005, and 2010. For each year, we evaluated the aims of all new/competing grants and abstracts of randomly selected PubMed articles. Compared with grants based on a single institution, consortium-based grants were more likely to incorporate contemporary technologies (P = 0.012), engage in multilevel analyses (P = 0.010), and incorporate elements of knowledge integration (P = 0.036). Approximately 74% of analyzed grants and publications involved discovery (T0) or characterization (T1) research, suggesting a need for more translational (T2–T4) research. Our evaluation indicated limited research in 1) a multilevel approach that incorporates molecular, individual, social, and environmental determinants and 2) knowledge integration that evaluates the robustness of scientific evidence. Cancer epidemiology is at the cusp of a paradigm shift, and the field will need to accelerate the pace of translating scientific discoveries in order to impart population health benefits. While multi-institutional and technology-driven collaboration is happening, concerted efforts to incorporate other key elements are warranted for the discipline to meet future challenges.

Obesity and associated lifestyles modify the effect of glucose metabolism‐related genetic variants on impaired glucose homeostasis among postmenopausal women

“…Physical activity was measured via metabolic equivalent task (MET); recreational physical activity, combining walking, and mild, moderate, and strenuous physical activity, was assigned a MET value corresponding to intensity. The total MET·hours·week −1 was calculated by multiplying the MET level for the activity by the hours exercised per week and summing the values for all activities (Haskell et al., ; Kirchhoff, Machicao, & Haupt, ; Lam, Chang, Rogers, Khoury, & Schully, ). Total physical activity values stratified participants into two groups, with 10 METs as the cutoff, according to current American College of Sports Medicine and American Heart Association recommendations (Haskell et al., ).…”

The future of translational research on alcohol use disorder

“…Specifically, T0 consists of basic research, T1 represents a translation to humans, T2 addresses the translation to patients, T3 is a translation to practice, and T4 is a translation to communities. The model proposes a continuum that can engage both academicians and communities in knowledge exchange and partnership and has been applied to cancer epidemiology 77 . A related model from Khoury et al 78 describes phases of translation as being Discovery (T0), Characterization (T1), Evaluation (T2), Implementation and Health Services (T3), and Outcome Research (T4).…”

Mapping the evolving definitions of translational research

“…[ 8 ], Khoury presented a 4-phase translational research continuum which highly predicts what would emerge as the later consensus on translational research. Yet this first Khoury paper shows little evidence of direct influence within our corpus and 4 out of 5 of the citing papers feature Khoury as first or senior author [ 10 , 26 , 32 , 44 ]. It is not for 4 years (2011), and appearance of these additional papers later, that we observe adoption of these ideas.…”

“…Our final corpus was comprised of 33 papers, filtered from 68 strong candidates out of an initial returned pool of 531 papers [ 8 – 10 , 14 , 15 , 17 – 44 ]. Labeling of translational phase definitions and total citations for each paper in the corpus are summarized in Fig.…”

“…In the instance where a paper cited a qualifying definition of translational research phases which was not in the corpus, the original defining paper [ 8 ] was substituted for the citing paper. The final corpus comprised of 33 papers [ 8 – 10 , 14 , 15 , 17 – 44 ]. See Fig.…”