November 19, 2015
The below story is republished here from the Cancer Prevention and Control Program
Jan Eberth, an early stage investigator who has already led a number of successful and high-impact research projects and is a joint faculty member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program (CPCP) and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Arnold School of Public Health, was recently awarded a coveted four-year Mentored Research Scholar Grant from the American Cancer Society. During this project, Eberth will explore accessibility to colonoscopy services in North and South Carolina and examine the neighborhood-level effects of socioeconomic status and access to care on late-stage colorectal cancer diagnosis rates. With her mentors Janice Probst, Lee Mobley (Georgia State University) and Mario Schootman (Saint Louis University), Eberth will focus her training on health policy development and advocacy, as well as innovative methods in medical geography and spatial statistics.
Hailing from Greenville, South Carolina, Eberth received her Master of Science in Public Health in Epidemiology from Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health in 2006 and her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health in 2011. Eberth joined the University of South Carolina in 2013.
In addition to serving as Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Eberth was recently appointed Deputy Director of the South Carolina Rural Health Research Center. Eberth’s research focuses on health disparities and the access, utilization and quality of cancer screening and treatment services. She often uses geographical information systems (GIS) to highlight areas where health disparities exist and in which preventive and screening services are particularly underutilized. Eberth is especially interested in increasing detection and treatment rates of the most commonly diagnosed cancers, including lung, breast and colorectal cancer, to reduce mortality rates across the state and increase the number of cancer survivors. Her ACS Mentored Scholar Research Grant will ensure that Eberth continues to make a difference in our state, working to increase access to high-quality cancer screening and ultimately lower cancer mortality.