Erin Kobetz
Chief Equity Officer, Vice President for Health Equity Associate Director for Community
Outreach and Engagement, Sylvester Cancer Center
Professor of Medicine, Public Health, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Marine Biology and Ecology
Miller School of Medicine, Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science
ekobetz@med.miami.edu
Dr. Kobetz is interested in interdisciplinary collaboration that extends understanding of how common pollutants influence cancer risk. Her work is rooted in collaborative research models, where scientists, clinicians, and stakeholders work together to define research priorities, study design, and implementation strategies. She has led research aimed at understanding cancer risk factors across various populations, including low-income individuals in South Florida, the Caribbean, and Latin America, as well as occupational groups such as firefighters. Dr. Kobetz work in Little Haiti was among the first published studies to document variability in multilevel risk factors for cervical cancer and successfully translated self-sampling for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) from a clinical setting to a broader community context. Similarly, her research with firefighters identified key sources of carcinogenic exposure and, in collaboration with first responders, policymakers, and scientific experts, developed multi-level risk reduction strategies. These efforts led to improvements in decontamination protocols, firetruck design, occupational safety policies, and the formal recognition of firefighting as an occupation associated with exposure to a Class 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Expertise in marine models will provide a nice complement to her population- and community-based research to understand existing variability in cancer and other health outcomes related to environmental and occupational exposures.
Keywords: pollutants, cancer, risk, low-income, firefighters
