In a melding of nationally recognized health care experts, researchers, community partners and legislators with entertainment industry artists and professionals, City of Hope’s Music, Film and Entertainment Industry group presented the inaugural California Coalition of Cancer Equity (C3E) Symposium in conjunction with Closing the Care Gap on June 21 and 22, 2022 at the GRAMMY museum. Four USC professors from three schools presented on health equity issues dedicated to addressing barriers and eliminating disparities unique to California.

Sarah Gehlert, the Ernest P. Larson Professor of Health, Ethnicity, and Poverty at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, and Chanita Hughes-Halbert, professor and vice chair of research in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at Keck School of Medicine were among the group of five experts who presented on technology and social determinants of health. John Carpten, professor and chair for the Department of Translational Genomics and the Royce and Mary Trotter Chair for Cancer Research at Keck moderated a panel on future insights in health equities. The second day of the conference focused discussions on leveraging public private partnerships in addressing the root causes of health inequity through the lens of health justice. Jonathan Azu, adjunct professor at USC Thornton School of Music and founder of Culture Collective, a management, record label, production and consultancy firm, joined a panel on community partnerships and the importance of access.

City of Hope and the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center partnered to bring scientific sessions and discussions on health equity issues led by some of the most prominent physicians and researchers in the country on breast cancer, prostate cancer and gastroenterology. In addition to USC, the symposium featured presentations from health care experts at Johns Hopkins University, Weill Cornell Medicine, Tuskegee University, UCLA, and UC Davis.