Departmental Affiliations
Contact Info
Research Interests
- Cancer prevention and control
- preventive screening
- women's health
- diet and health
- HIV/AIDS
- transplantation
- organ procurement
- minority health
- access to care
- GIS
- spatial statistics
- multilevel influences
- geodemographics
Experiences & Accomplishments
My research interests are in the social and psychological influences on inequitable distribution of medical care and related health outcomes. My work uses a social perspective to examine the differences in experience of disease and illness, and to identify components of individual experiences which are tied to broader social explanations and influences. This perspective is then applied to specific questions of disease outcomes and treatment access.
My primary focus has been in the area of cancer control, and spans the continuum of cancer control from primary prevention interventions to promote dietary change, to screening for early detection of breast, cervical, and oral cancers, to access to treatment, comorbidity and survival outcomes. This work synthesizes the influences of ethnic, social and geographic context, organizational behavior and policy, physician behavior, and individual patient behaviors.
Other research in chronic organ failure and transplantion, HIV/AIDS, and immunization also examines social and behavioral influences on disparities.
Honors & Awards
Delta Omega, National Public Health Honor Society, 2001.
Ho-Ching Yang Memorial Faculty Award, 1999.
Select Publications
Klassen AC, Platz EA. What Can Geography Tell Us About Prostate Cancer? (Invited for Special Issue on GIS and Prostate Cancer, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 9/2005).
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Klassen AC, Curriero F, Kulldorff M, Alberg AJ, Platz EA, Neloms S. Missing Stage and Grade in Maryland Prostate Cancer Surveillance Data, 1992-1997. (Invited for Special Issue on GIS and Prostate Cancer, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 9/2005).