Sun Exposure and Melanoma in Agricultural Workers

描述（由申请人提供）：本次K07职业发展奖励申请旨在将我的职业发展从癌症病因学扩展到癌症预防和控制。职业发展规划依靠癌症预防研究专家的指导和“保护时间”来促进我作为一个独立的癌症控制研究人员的职业发展。虽然我受过流行病学和生物统计学方面的培训和专业知识，但很明显，我的职业发展需要更具体地接触行为研究方法和行为干预技术。农业健康研究（AHS）队列是一个独特的人群，将用于检查私人农药施施者（农民）及其配偶的阳光照射，防晒行为以及影响这些行为的因素与黑色素瘤风险的关系。这个职业发展计划将我在一年级分析现有数据的统计和流行病学专业知识与行为健康教育结合起来，培养我测量影响行为因素的技能，以及设计和实施行为干预的技能。在第一年，我将在国家癌症研究所学习两周的课程，在我的共同导师Michael Alavanja博士的指导下，学习更多关于农业健康研究（AHS）及其环境暴露测量的知识，以指导我分析与黑色素瘤相关的队列的现有基线数据。然后，在2-5年级期间，我将与我在爱荷华大学的导师John Lowe博士一起工作，以扩大我的调查技能，引导焦点小组，检查行为因素和行为态度，并发展行为干预的技能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This K07 Career Development Award application is designed to expand my career development from cancer etiology to cancer prevention and control. The career development plan rests on mentoring directed by experts in cancer prevention research and "protected time" to foster my professional development as an independent cancer control researcher. While I have training and expertise in epidemiology and biostatistics, it is becoming clear that my career development requires more specific exposure to behavioral research methodologies and behavioral intervention techniques. A unique population, the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) cohort, will be used to examine sun exposure, sun protection behavior, and factors affecting these behaviors regarding the risk of melanoma in private pesticide applicators (farmers) and their spouses. This career development program integrates my statistical and epidemiologic expertise for analyzing existing data in Year 1, with Behavioral Health education to develop my skills in measurement of factors affecting behavior and skills to design and conduct behavioral interventions. In Year 1, I will take courses and spend 2 weeks at the National Cancer Institute learning more about the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) and its measurement of environmental exposures under my co-mentor Dr. Michael Alavanja to guide my analysis of existing baseline data on the cohort related to melanoma. I will then work with my mentor Dr. John Lowe at the University of Iowa during Years 2-5 to expand my survey skills to conducting focus groups, examining behavioral factors, and behavioral attitudes, and develop skills in behavioral interventions. The research plan proposes to examine skin melanoma within this prospective cohort of private applicators (mostly farmers) and their spouses in Iowa and North Carolina (the AHS) in association with environmental factors. The specific aims are as follows: Aim 1 is to examine the risk of melanoma in the AHS cohort using various existing measures of sun exposure adjusted for skin sensitivity and sun protection. Aim 2 is to conduct qualitative research using focus groups to design appropriate measures of sun exposure, sun protection behavior, and factors affecting these behaviors in private applicators and their spouses within the AHS. Aim 3 is to conduct a nested case-control study of melanoma within the AHS cohort to examine in more detail sun exposure histories and protective behavior. Aim 4 is to use the results from the cohort and nested case-control studies to design a behavioral intervention. These aims will lead to the development of a R01 proposal to a) survey the whole AHS cohort about sun exposure, and to b) conduct a behavioral intervention as an independent cancer control researcher.