John S. Luque

Dr. John Luque, Professor in the Institute of Public Health at Florida A&M University, completed his one-year term as President of the American Association for Cancer Education (AACE) at the annual meeting of the International Cancer Education Conference, held September 24-27, 2024, in Lexington, Kentucky. During Dr. Luque’s tenure, a revamped mentoring program was launched and several AACE webinars were conducted. In addition, Dr. Luque was invited to present his research at the European Association for Cancer Education in Birmingham, England, and he published two editorials in the Journal of Cancer Education as well as the President’s Message to members in the quarterly AACE newsletter. For more information on AACE, see https://www.aaceonline.com/

At the 2024 Principal Investigator’s Appreciation and Researchers of the Year Awards Luncheon, Dr. Luque was one of four Principal Investigators honored at Florida A&M University in the Alfred Lawson Jr. Center on April 19, 2024. Dr. Luque received the Research Excellence Award in STEM.

Dr. Luque began his one-year term as President of the American Association for Cancer Education (AACE) on October 5, 2023. He has previously served as President-Elect, Vice-President, Secretary and At-Large Member of the Executive Council for the last five years. During these leadership roles, he has served as Co-Chair of the ICEC Planning Committee, Co-Chair of the ICEC Abstract and Poster Committees and Co-Chair of the AACE Membership Committee. In his new role as President, Dr. Luque will preside over AACE Executive Council meetings. Dr. Luque emphasizes marketing efforts to continue to recruit new members to AACE, especially for NCI R25 Principal Investigators. If you are not already a member, please consider joining AACE today or making a gift contribution to the organization. There are also sponsorship opportunities for exhibitors at our annual conference, which will be held next year in Lexington, Kentucky from September 24-27, 2024.

The year 2023 has been a banner year for publishing book chapters. Please see the following references for new book chapters published by Dr. Luque and collaborators!!

Luque, J, Martinez-Tyson, D. (2023) Community-engaged Partnership Research. In The Handbook of Teaching Qualitative and Mixed Research Methods: A Step-by-Step Guide for Instructors, A. Ruth, A. Wutich, and H. R. Bernard, eds. Oxford, England: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/The-Handbook-of-Teaching-Qualitative-and-Mixed-Research-Methods-A-Step-by-Step/Ruth-Wutich-Bernard/p/book/9781032100272

Luque, J, Khaliq, M. (2023) Community-Engaged Approaches to Health Promotion and Social Marketing. In Social and Behavioral Foundations of Public Health, 3rd Edition, Jeannine Coreil, ed. Cognella Publishers. https://titles.cognella.com/social-and-behavioral-foundations-of-public-health-9781793580757

Roy, S, Davis, S, Luque, J, Gwede, C. (2023) Colorectal Cancer among African Americans in the Southern United States. In Black Health in the South, S.S. Coughlin, L.B. Williams, T.H. Akintobi, eds. Johns Hopkins University Press. https://press.jhu.edu/books/title/12840/black-health-south

The application titled, “Monitoring Community Efforts to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening in African Americans” has been awarded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. John Luque, Professor in the Institute of Public Health, is the Principal Investigator of the 4-year grant which was awarded on April 1, 2023. The grant was submitted to the Support for Research Excellence (SuRE) Award (R16) program. The study will monitor colorectal cancer screening among a cohort of African American patients in community health centers and leverage community-engaged research to study colorectal cancer screening adherence among African Americans with a goal to increase stool-based screening rates. The two community partners for the study, Bond Community Health Center and Neighborhood Medical Center, are trusted local clinical partners and provide vital support for the planned community-engaged research. For more information on the grant, please search NIH Reporter for details.

Dr. Luque and Dr. Vennalaganti from Digestive Disease Clinic in Tallahassee provided a one-hour webinar for the Future Public Health Professionals student organization at Florida A&M University Institute of Public Health. To see link to the recording it is archived here: https://tinyurl.com/9z946hvn

Dr. Luque began his term as President-Elect of the American Association for Cancer Education (AACE) on October 17, 2022. He has previously served as Vice-President, Secretary and At-Large Member of the Executive Council for the last four years. During these leadership roles, he has served as Co-Chair of the ICEC Abstract and Poster Committees and the Co-Chair of the AACE Membership Committee. In his role as President-Elect, Dr. Luque continues to recruit new members to AACE, will co-chair next year’s annual conference in Toronto to be held in October, 2023, and attends membership committee meetings. If you are not already a member, please consider joining AACE today or making a gift contribution to the organization.

Well, it has almost been a year since the USPSTF Recommendations were updated to start screening at age 45 (see my post from last year). This month of March, I gave one academic and one community presentation for colorectal cancer awareness month. Remember, the best test to take is the test that gets done! Schedule your CRC screening if you are “non-adherent” as we like to say in academic jargon.

Dr. Luque began his term as Vice-President of the American Association for Cancer Education (AACE) in 2021. He has previously served as Secretary and as an At-Large Member of the Executive Council for the last three years. In that capacity he served as Co-Chair of the ICEC Abstract and Poster Committees and the Co-Chair of the AACE Membership Committee. In his role as Vice-President, Dr. Luque continues to recruit new members to AACE, co-chairs this year’s annual conference, and attends membership committee meetings. If you are not already a member, please consider joining AACE today or making a gift contribution to the organization.