Culture is currently poorly defined and even more poorly operationalized in cancer research. Such practice renders culture irrelevant to the risk factors known or suspected to impact disease prevalence, morbidity, and mortality in diverse population groups. Consequently, it is not surprising that analyses of study data finds culture to contribute negligible explanatory weight to the variance of health outcomes for diverse populations who bear an undue burden of cancer, and the opportunity to identify the pathways of this panhuman process remain invisible. Research studies miss scientifically-grounded concepts and methods that likely account for both population and individual variations in health outcomes. NIH's OBSSR funded a report to change science when researchers consider culture, a fundamental human process, as a factor in health outcomes. This report provides multiple scientifically proven approaches by which to integrate the dynamic and adaptive nature of culture into research. These multiple factors that inform the cultural process require that we reassess how we frame health issues, how we design interventions, how we measure the impact of interventions, and for whom, by whom, and why. Each step will require further theorizing and research, but this report provides a first step by providing a theoretical and practical framework to use to build the foundation needed to pursue this line of inquiry to identify the fundamental role of culture in framing behavior and ways of life that influence mental and physical responses to cancer. Application of this framework could move the science of cancer health disparities research and practice forward in more promising and effective directions.

Citation Format: Marjorie Kagawa Singer. The Cultural Framework for Health: Transforming the use of culture to reduce cancer health disparities. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Sixth AACR Conference: The Science of Cancer Health Disparities; Dec 6–9, 2013; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2014;23(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B02. doi:10.1158/1538-7755.DISP13-B02