The Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC has been a leader in its field since its founding in 1977 and has made many noteworthy contributions to the understanding of public health and disease etiology, treatment, and prevention. These include pioneering research on the relationship between hormones and cancer, the ability of exercise to reduce breast cancer risk, demonstration of the impact of air pollution on childhood lung function development, advances in the etiology, treatment and prevention of pediatric obesity, as well as novel methodological research focusing on the interaction between genes and the environment. The foundation for many of these advances stems from a highly collaborative faculty implementing a transdisciplinary approach to research – an approach hallmarked by the integration of biologically and behaviorally motivated hypotheses, advanced technology, and extensive study populations. Such examples include one of the first research groups to exploit the Cancer Surveillance Program to enhance population-based studies of disease, the use of multiple ethnic groups within the Multiethnic Cohort Study to localize genetic findings, and the integration of Geographic Information Systems in the Children's Health Study to create a detailed history of the pollution within the Los Angeles basin to investigate its potential influence on patterns of childhood diseases.
The Department of Preventive Medicine has a blend of expertise, research, and teaching that makes it unique among departments in the University. Between its five diverse divisions, Preventive Medicine is home to worldwide authorities on prevention research in biostatistics, environmental health, health behavior, epidemiology, and bioinformatics. The department's faculty members are widely sought for peer review and advisory activities and participate in diverse committees of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Our research is at the very core of our goals to promote the public health of diverse populations in the California and Pacific Rim region. This is also reflected in our training programs with undergraduate degrees in Health Promotion and Global Health and advanced degrees in Public Health, Global Medicine, Biostatistics, Applied Biostatistics & Epidemiology, Epidemiology, Molecular Epidemiology, and Statistical Genetics & Genetic Epidemiology. Our strong history, coupled with our talented faculty and the ability to utilize new technologies, places USC in a position to be a leader in many future discoveries and in the training of the next generation of prevention/public health researchers.
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President Barack Obama has announced his intent to appoint University of Southern California (USC) Professor Jonathan M. Samet to the National Cancer Advisory Board.
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A researcher at the Keck School of Medicine of USC has published a study highlighting the importance of physicians listening to parental reports of gastrointestinal problems in their autistic children and screening these children for gastrointestinal dysfunction, or GID.
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Obese women may increase their risk for developing type 2 diabetes by using the birth control shot marketed as Depo-Provera, according to a small study by researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
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New research from the Keck School of Medicine and Cancer Prevention Institute of California has found that eating salmon and other dark, fatty fish may decrease the risk of developing prostate cancer, while consuming flounder and other white, lean fish may increase the risk. It depends on how the fish is cooked.
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The USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center looks back on important discoveries and breakthroughs made at the center in the 40 years since the National Cancer Act was passed, on Dec. 23, 1971.
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In an article published in the online scientific journal Nature Genetics, the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) Epigenome Center reports a significant breakthrough in cancer research expected to have a long-term impact on both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
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The University of Southern California’s renowned doctors and nationally ranked private hospitals have a new name effective November 1: Keck Medical Center of USC.
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Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, together with other scientists, have identified the location of a genetic risk factor for a type of breast cancer that disproportionately affects women of African descent and carries a worse prognosis than other forms of the disease.
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