Mindy Hebert-DeRouen
MPH, PhD
Dr. Hebert-DeRouen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences. She is a social and cancer epidemiologist researching inequities in cancer and other health outcomes due to multi-level determinants, especially structural and social determinants of health. Her research portfolio includes studies of the impact of structural and social determinants on ovarian, liver, prostate, and lung cancer outcomes as well as overall life-expectancy. She has particular interest in the pathways by which legacies of neighborhood-level structural racism impact health and well-being of marginalized racial and ethnic groups.
Dr. Hebert-DeRouen has extensive experience designing multilevel epidemiologic analyses. She has expertise pooling and harmonizing complex multi-level data from disparate sources, including contextual-level data, cancer registry data, and data from electronic health records. She also has experience conducting mixed-methods, community-engaged participatory research and community-led research to address how neighborhoods impact health.
Dr. Hebert-DeRouen teaches introductory epidemiology courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Education
- PhD, Cancer Biology, Stanford University
- MPH, Epidemiology, University of California, Berkeley
- MA, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Oxford University
- BS, Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University
Research Interests
- Black Zones: Harnessing Mobile Tech-enabled, Community-driven Data, Population Health Data, and Agent-based Models to Transform the Measures and Metrics around Structural Racism and Black Longevity is an NIA R01 (MPIs: Akom, Perry, Hebert-DeRouen, and Rehkopf, DOPE Labs) to co-design novel community-led quantitative and qualitative tools, measures, and data sets that more accurately capture the multifaceted nature of structural racism, its intersections with other systems of oppression, and its impact on Black longevity; and develop agent-based models to dynamically assess factors that hinder or promote Black longevity across histories and geographies.
- Multi-institutional, Linked EHRs to Examine Factors and Diagnostic Pathways that Facilitate Early Ovarian Cancer Diagnosis is a CDC-funded project (MPIs: Hebert-DeRouen and Walsh, UCSF) to examine factors that facilitate earlier ovarian cancer diagnosis—including pre-diagnostic routes, timelines, and symptoms—using EHR data from two healthcare systems linked to population-based cancer registry data. Investigators will develop and disseminate public health messaging to shift ovarian cancer stage at diagnosis for individuals, communities, clinical providers, and healthcare systems.
- Understanding the Multilevel Drivers of Liver Cancer Disparities is an NCI R01 (PI: Shariff-Marco, UCSF) that is examining the relative contribution of established emerging, and novel risk factors on liver cancer risk across detailed racial and ethnic groups using an electronic health record-based cohort derived from multiple healthcare systems linked to population-based cancer registry data and data on the neighborhood environment. Findings can be used to inform strategies in clinical and community settings to reduce the burden of liver cancer particularly for those at high risk. Dr. Hebert-DeRouen is a Co-Investigator and directs all scientific activities for this R01.
- Understanding the role of structural racism on racial/ethnic inequities in lung cancer risk is an NCI R01 (MPIs: Cheng and Park, UCSF) to examine the associations of structural racism and neighborhood attributes of disinvestment with smoking status and internal dose as well as lung cancer risk with an emphasis on inequities across race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The study includes over 272,000 participants of the Multiethnic Cohort Study and the Southern Community Cohort Study. Dr. Hebert-DeRouen is a Co-Investigator leading the community advisory board and providing expertise on the application of frameworks of structural racism to analytic designs.
- Understanding the impact of structural racism on racial/ethnic inequities in mortality: The Multiethnic Cohort Study is an NIMHD R01 (MPIs: Shariff-Marco and Cheng, UCSF) to investigate the contribution of structural racism to mortality among Black, Hispanic/Latino, Japanese American, and Native Hawaiian adults. New index measures of structural racism including variables within domains of housing, education, employment, criminal justice, and healthcare will be developed to reflect experiences of each racial/ethnic group. Dr. Hebert-DeRouen is a Co-Investigator leading the community advisory board and providing expertise on the application of frameworks of structural racism to the development of the new index measures.
- Research on Prostate Cancer in African American Men: Defining the Roles of Genetics, Immunity and Access to Care: the RESPOND Study is an NCI program project (PI: Haiman, USC) comprising four integrated projects and four support cores to address the role of social stressor genetics, somatic profiles, and tumor inflammation on aggressive prostate cancer among African American men. Dr. Heber-Derouen a Co-Investigator, she led development of the baseline RESPOND survey and is leading causal inference analyses to examine the extent to which neighborhood environment factors mediate the impact of structural racism on mortality among African American men with prostate cancer.
Selected Publications
- Guan A, Cruz T, Sowell J, Mattias B, Shah A, Hope Hassberg A, Shariff-Marco S, Akom A, DeRouen MC. (2023) Combining mixed methods and community-based participatory research approaches to identify neighborhood-level needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Mixed Methods Research. Epub, December 15, 2023.
- Guan A, Cruz T, Sowell J, Mattias B, Hope Hassberg A, Shariff-Marco S, Akom A, DeRouen MC. (2023) Dignified resources and coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study within racially and economically marginalized communities. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. Oct 16: 1-9.
- DeRouen MC, Yang J, Yuqing L, Franke A, Tome AN, White KK, Hernandez BY, Shvetsov Y, Setiawan V, Wu AH, Wilkens LR, Le Marchand L, Loo LWM, Cheng I. (2023) Circulating 27-Hydroxycholesterol and breast cancer risk: The Multiethnic Cohort Study. Breast Cancer Research. 25, 95.
- DeRouen MC, Canchola AJ, Thompson CA, Jin A, Nie S, Wong C, Lichtensztajn D, Allen L, Patel MI, Daida YG, Luft HS, Shariff-Marco S, Reynolds P, Wakelee HA, Liang SY, Waitzfelder BE, Cheng I, Gomez SL. (2022) Incidence of Lung Cancer Among Never-Smoking Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Females. JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 114:1, 78-86
- DeRouen MC, Tao L, Shariff-Marco S, Yang J, Shvetsov YB, Park SY, Albright CL, Monroe K, Le Marchand L, Wilkens L, Gomez SL, Cheng I. (2022). Neighborhood obesogenic environment and risk of prostate cancer: The Multiethnic Cohort. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. May 4; 31:5, 972-981.
- DeRouen MC, Yang J, Jain J, Weden MM, Gomez SL, Shariff-Marco S (2021). Disparities in Prostate Cancer Survival According to Neighborhood Archetypes, A Population-Based Study. Urology. 163, 138-147.
- DeRouen MC, Thompson CA, Canchola AJ, Jin A, Nie S, Wong C, Jain J, Lichtensztajn DY, Li Y, Allen L, Patel MI, Daida Y, Luft HS, Shariff-Marco S, Reynolds P, Wakelee HA, Liang SY, Waitzfelder BE, Cheng I, Gomez SL. (2021). Integrating electronic health record, cancer registry, and geospatial data to study lung cancer among Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander ethnic groups. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. 30:8, 1506-1516.
- DeRouen MC, McKinley M, Shah SA, Borno HT, Aoki R, Lichtensztajn DY, Leppert JT, Brooks JD, Chung B, Gomez SL, Cheng I. (2020). Testicular cancer in Hispanics: Incidence of subtypes over time according to neighborhood sociodemographic factors in California. Cancer Causes and Control. 31:8, 713-721.
