Departmental Affiliations
Center & Institute Affiliations
Contact Info
Research Interests
Cancer; Prevention; Early Detection; Screening; HIV; Medicaid; Modifiable risk factors; Biomarkers of risk and prognosis; Etiology; Epidemiology;
Experiences & Accomplishments
I am a cancer epidemiologist who conducts research to inform evidence-based opportunities to improve cancer prevention, screening, and treatment across the lifespan, with particular attention to those who experience disparity in cancer-associated mortality, including among people living with HIV and members of Indigenous communities. I co-direct the Medicaid Cancer (MediCan) Study to assess the provision and impact of cancer care on health outcomes among more than 44 million Medicaid beneficiaries with and without HIV. Our most recent Medicaid study focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the provision of care across 27 states. In collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, I co-lead the Cancer Care Project which aims to work with the Navajo Nation and White Mountain Apache Tribe to reduce disparities in cancer education, care access, and outcomes among Native American families.
I also lead population-based studies to examine the role of modifiable risk factors, including obesity and smoking, on cancer incidence and prognosis, and to inform understanding of the biological mechanisms that underlie these associations. To assess whether prior findings for obesity and prostate cancer can be translated into clinical action, I lead the EMPOWER study, a randomized clinical trial to test whether weight loss reduces progression among men with biochemical recurrence after definitive treatment for prostate cancer.
I am a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center (SKCCC) at Johns Hopkins. I co-lead the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study Cancer Working Group. To facilitate the integration of tissue-based biomarkers in ARIC and other prospective cohort studies, I established and directs the Washington County Tissue Repository at the George W. Comstock Center for Public Health Research and Prevention. The repository has identified cancer and non-cancer tissue specimens from ~1,800 ARIC participants and ~9,300 CLUE I and CLUE II cohort participants via cohort linkage with a pathology record database.
Honors & Awards
Delta Omega Honorary Public Health Society, Alpha Delta Chapter
Martin D. Abeloff, MD Scholar-in-Training in Cancer Prevention and Control, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Select Publications
Recent Publications
Rudolph JE, Calkins KL, Xu X, Wentz E, Pirsl F, Visvanathan K, Lau B, Joshu CE. Comparing Cancer Incidence in an Observational Cohort of Medicaid Beneficiaries With and Without HIV, 2001-2015. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2024 Jan 1;95(1):26-34. PMID: 37831615
Joshu CE, Calkins KL, Rudolph JE, Xu X, Wentz E, Coburn SB, Kaur M, Pirsl F, Moore RD, Lau B. AIDS. Lower endoscopy, early-onset, and average-onset colon cancer among Medicaid beneficiaries with and without HIV. 2024 Jan 1;38(1):85-94. PMID: 37788111
Joshu CE, Heaphy CM, Barber JR, Davis C, Zarinshenas R, De Marzo AM, Lotan TL, Sfanos KS, Meeker AK, Platz EA. Obesity is associated with shorter telomere length in prostate stromal cells in men with aggressive prostate cancer. Cancer Prev Res. 2021 Apr;14(4):463-470. PMC8026488
Marrone MT, Selvin E, Barber JR, Platz EA, Joshu CE. Hyperglycemia, Classified with Multiple Biomarkers Simultaneously in Men without Diabetes, and Risk of Fatal Prostate Cancer. Cancer Prev Res (Phila). 2019;12(2):103-12. Epub 2018/12/13. doi: 10.1158/1940-6207.Capr-18-0216. PubMed PMID: 30538098; PMCID: PMC6365210.
Joshu CE, Barber JR, Coresh J, Couper DJ, Mosley TH, Vitolins MZ, Butler KR, Nelson HH, Prizment AE, Selvin E, Tooze JA, Visvanathan K, Folsom AR, Platz EA. Enhancing the Infrastructure of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study for Cancer Epidemiology Research: ARIC Cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2018 27(3):295-305.