Mika Caruncho, MSW, MPH, is a research associate trained in anthropology, public health policy, and social work. She has extensive experience in qualitative research and has spent the past few years supporting ELSI (Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues) studies in cancer genomics at the University of California, San Francisco Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her academic and professional interests include understanding the lived experiences of various stakeholders to examine health disparities and social policies, and the intersections between racial equity and healthcare access. She has been leading her own NCI funded diversity supplement to support her work on an ELSI project that follows an online, pragmatic RCT testing a risk-stratified approach to breast cancer using genomics. Through this study she hopes to further understand the experiences of breast cancer screening trial participants from underrepresented communities, so to inform medical systems on how to cultivate trust, reduce stigma, and increase participation and representation of diverse populations in medical studies.
