Ysabel Duron is a pioneering, award-winning Latina journalist, a cancer survivor, and for the last 23 years, a leading patient activist around Latino community engagement. Her encore career as a cancer patient advocate and non-profit agency builder commenced when she was diagnosed with cancer in 1999.
This past February President Joe Biden appointed Duron to the National Cancer Advisory Board which advises the Director of the National Cancer Institute.
Duron describes her “work in and with community,” as a learning classroom and credits the experience with preparing her for her advocacy role. Among other things, her former agency developed programs for low income, Spanish-speaking and immigrant communities to address gaps along the cancer continuum including cancer awareness education, navigation into screening, psychosocial support groups and a lay community navigator program to support and guide low income, Spanish-speaking cancer patients in the public health care cancer center in Santa Clara County (San Jose), California.
Between 2008 and 2016, under her leadership at Latinas Contra Cancer (LCC), Duron convened 5 unique National Latino Cancer Summits, turning its lens on cancer issues in the Latino community, collaborating with advocacy groups, researchers and health care providers to investigate, and address cancer related impacts, as she likes to say, “…bringing community to science and science to community."
LCC also created linguistically and culturally appropriate education tools using a bingo game model to dispel myth and misinformation, promote healthy eating and exercise as well as screening and early detection; training up to 200 promotores aka community health workers to use these tools to raise awareness and navigate eligible participants into screenings. This bingo concept was adapted for the African American and Pacific Islander communities, and cited by the NIEHS - IBCERCC Committee, on which Duron served, in the 2012 Breast Cancer and the Environment, Prioritizing Prevention Report.
In 2017, Ms. Duron launched her third and current agency, The Latino Cancer Institute (TLCI), to amplify Latino voices about the cancer burden – acting as a force multiplier through a nationwide network of stakeholders; dedicated to promote the work of Latino community service agencies; to provide collaboration with the global cancer research community; and to drive policy to improve health outcomes and diminish disproportionate Latino cancer mortality.
The Institute has since convened 5 National TLCI virtual Forums as Duron continues to bring together researchers, clinicians, advocates, government and industry officials across the cancer landscape. The 5th National Forum on October 27, 2023 focused on the Turbulent Ecosystem; Climate Change and the Impact on the Latino Cancer Burden. Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro was a special guest and a new legislative ally.
TLCI’s collaborations include engagements with academic partners such as the Stanford Cancer Institute, Universities of California at San Francisco and Davis, Georgetown University Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, George Washington Cancer Center, the California Primary Care Association (FQHCs), San Diego and San Jose State Universities. Duron is a published co-author in over 10 research papers.
TLCI’s robust engagement has resulted in two invitations to the White House, once for a re-launch (Feb 2022) of President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative to drive cancer screenings and decrease cancer mortality by 50% in 25 years. The 2nd White House event (Oct 2022) spotlighted the American Cancer Society launch of the newly formed National Breast Cancer Roundtable (NBCRT) on which Duron now serves. NBCRT aims, among other policy initiatives, to address disparities in clinical trial enrollment, cancer screening and access, advanced diagnostics and quality treatment, all impacting racial and ethnic populations.