Glossary »

Abstract: An abstract is a short summary of a research project or research paper. Oftentimes, abstracts briefly outline the background and goal of the study (introduction), how the study was conducted (methods), what the study found (results), and why the study’s results are important (conclusion).

Barriers to Health: The factors that prevent individuals or groups from gaining access to health care and health services. These factors can be environmental, social, cultural, political, or economic.

Behavioral Risk Factors: These are modifiable risk factors or behaviors that exert a strong influence on health. Examples include: tobacco use, alcohol consumption, physical activity and diet, sexual practices, and disease screenings.

Cancer: A disease that occurs when the body’s old or abnormal cells keep growing instead of dying when they should. When abnormal cells accumulate, they can interfere with the function of the body’s normal, healthy cells.

Chemotherapy: A type of cancer treatment that uses drugs to kill or stop the growth of cancer cells. Chemotherapy is sometimes given alongside other treatments such as surgery or radiation.

Comorbidity: Comorbidity refers to multiple disorders occurring in the same individual. Comorbid conditions are conditions that often occur together, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Cultural Competency: The ability to understand, communicate with, respect, and interact with people from cultures or belief systems different from one’s own.

Environmental Racism: A form of racism where communities of color are exposed to health hazards due to laws and policies that force them to live close to sources of toxic pollution like sewage plants, mines, landfills, power stations, major highways, and factories.

Epigenetics: The study of how our actions and surroundings, or our behaviors and environment, can change the way our genes work. 

Ethnicity: Is a grouping of people based on shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Attributes can include common traditions, language, culture, and nation (among others).

Genes: Units of DNA that determine an individual’s traits. Traits are features or characteristics that are inherited, or passed on, from one’s parents (like eye color or height).

Genetic Ancestry: Whereas race is socially constructed, genetic ancestry refers to the biological makeup of an individual’s DNA and focuses on the geographical origin of their ancestors.

Grants: In the United States, many research studies are funded by the federal government via grants. Researchers apply for grants by submitting applications to various government organizations, like NIH or NCI.

Health Equity: Health equity is the prioritization of historically marginalized and disenfranchised groups in order to extend and provide the fair and just opportunity for access and use of quality health and non-health social services (e.g. housing, education, etc.) that are usually given to privileged persons without discrimination, racism, and additional undue burdens that create and sustain obstacles to health.

Health Disparities: Are preventable differences in the presence or burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve health that are experienced by marginalized communities, groups of people, or individuals.

Health Literacy: The degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.

HeLa Cells: Refer to the cells taken from Henrietta Lacks without her permission, which are still used widely in research today. The HeLa cell line has contributed to countless medical breakthroughs in cancer research and other medical fields.

Henrietta Lacks: Was an African American woman with cervical cancer whose cells were taken during a biopsy procedure without her consent in 1951. The cells were then used for research purposes without her permission.

Immunotherapy: A type of cancer treatment that helps an individual’s immune system fight cancer. During immunotherapy, certain drugs are used to supercharge, or provide a boost, to cancer-fighting immune cells.

Institutional Review Board (IRB): A group of individuals in charge of making sure that research studies follow ethical guidelines for the protection of human study participants. The IRB must review research studies before they can begin to enroll participants.

Metastasis: The spread of cancer from its original site to other parts of the body. When this occurs, it can be said that the cancer is “metastatic,” or “has metastasized.”

Microaggressions: Are instances of everyday, subtle, and (un)intentional discrimination, racism, or biases that are directed towards members of marginalized communities. Microaggressions can take many different shapes and forms.

NCI: The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is one part of the National Institutes of Health. NCI conducts and supports research that is specifically focused on cancer and cancer treatment.

NIH: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and is the country’s largest medical research agency. NIH conducts and supports many medical research studies.

Perceived Discrimination: Refers to when people themselves perceive or experience discrimination. This may include events that are not discriminatory by law of scientific definitions while also excluding those that are because they were not experienced as such by the individual. Perceived discrimination can be at the institutional level or the personal level and can exist in both explicit and implicit forms.

Principal Investigator: The individual in charge of leading a research study. The principal investigator (PI) oversees the many moving pieces of a research study, but often has a research team helping them, as well.

Protocol: In scientific research, the protocol is a written document that outlines the procedures, or steps, of the study. Protocols provide a detailed snapshot of how a study will be conducted.

Race: Is a social construct used to group people. Race was constructed to identify, distinguish, and marginalize groups of people. Race divides people into groups often based on physical appearance, social factors, and cultural backgrounds. Race is not rooted in biology.

Scientific Racism: Refers to the biased use of false science (pseudoscience) to justify, support, and perpetuate racism.

Social Determinants of Health: The social, economic, and political conditions that influence individual and group outcomes in health and well-being.

Socioeconomic Status: Is the social standing or position of a person. It is largely seen as a combination of a person’s income, education level, and occupation or job.

Structural Violence: A term that describes the “social arrangements” that inflict pain and suffering on some people but not others. These arrangements are structural because they are economic and political, and they are violent because they cause illness, suffering, and death.

Systemic or Structural Racism: Forms of racism that are deeply embedded in the systems, laws, policies, practices, and beliefs of society. These forms of racism produce, allow, and perpetuate the mistreatment and oppression of people of color.

Tumors: Are masses of cells that sometimes form in the body. Tumors can either be benign (not cancer) or malignant (cancer). Sometimes, tumors must be surgically removed. Other times, they can be shrunk by non-surgical treatments.