Among all non-communicable diseases, cancer is the second cause of death worldwide. Although some cancers are preventable [1, 2, 3] and treatable and even curable, cancer remains the most common cause of death among populations of African Ancestry worldwide [4, 5]. Despite the availability of effective: (1) low-cost early screening techniques for some cancers such as cervical, colon, and prostate and (2) vaccines for 11–26-year-old boys and girls to prevent HPV infection—efforts to address US and global cancer prevention and control in populations of African Ancestry remain a challenge [6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. To begin to document this public health crisis in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa, the scientific scope of this Special Issue spans molecular epidemiology, prevention, screening, and treatment of cancer in populations of African Ancestry. The studies represent the ongoing research of members of an international collaborative consortium: the African Caribbean Cancer Consortium (AC3) [11,12, 13, 14]. AC3 is supported by the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) in NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS). Over the past 10 years, the AC3 has built a network of collaborations that is multidisciplinary including Epidemiology, Medicine, Molecular biology, Genetics/Genomics, Behavioral Science, Community Health Science, Cancer Registration, and Advocacy. The goal being to promote collaboration to address cancer in the African Diaspora. Of the 83 collaborative papers to date, the major scientific themes include cancer surveillance (20%), genetics/genomics (16%), HPV studies (18%), cancer screening (11%), and the remaining include review articles, social and behavioral research, basic science, and other biomarker research. By geographic region, published work generated from our research involve primarily US–Caribbean collaborations and to a lesser extent US–Caribbean–Africa collaborations.

Treatment outcomes

Cancer risk factors

Summary