Monica Baskin

Monica Baskin is an American psychologist and behavioral scientist, whose research focuses on cancer prevention, behavioral medicine, and health equity. She is Director of the VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, Associate Dean for Cancer Innovation and professor of hematology, oncology and palliative care at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. She also has a secondary appointment as professor of social and behavioral sciences in the VCU School of Public Health.

She is a former president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine and recently chaired the cancer incidence panel for the World Cancer Research Fund International’s Global Cancer Update Program.

Early life and education Baskin grew up in Southwest Atlanta. Her mother and father were from rural Georgia and Alabama, respectively.

Later, while Baskin was in high school, her father died from his second cancer after being diagnosed at an advanced stage of the disease. This loss influenced her interest in understanding cancer, health disparities, and the barriers that affect access to prevention, early detection, and care, particularly among communities that have historically experienced worse outcomes.

Baskin studied psychology and sociology at Emory University before completing graduate training at Georgia State University, where she earned a master's degree in community counseling and a doctoral degree in counseling psychology. Her interdisciplinary training in psychology, counseling, and public health shaped her later research in behavioral medicine, cancer prevention, and community-engaged research.

After completing her doctoral training, Baskin returned to Emory University, where she completed a pediatric psychology fellowship prior to obtaining her license as a professional psychologist.

Research and career Baskin's research focuses on behavioral medicine, cancer prevention and early detection, obesity, and community-engaged approaches to improving health outcomes and eliminating health disparities. Her work examines how social, behavioral, and environmental factors influence health outcomes and how community-based interventions can improve health outcomes for all.

In the early stages of her career, Baskin investigated behavioral and psychological factors related to chronic disease prevention, including obesity and health behaviors. Her research contributed to understanding obesity prevalence and the role of behavioral interventions in improving health outcomes among diverse populations.

In 2005, Baskin co-authored a review examining the prevalence of obesity in the United States and factors contributing to obesity trends. Her later work expanded into community-based health promotion, including research on faith-based interventions as a strategy for addressing health disparities. In 2007, she co-authored "Church-Based Health Promotion Interventions: Evidence and Lessons Learned," which examined the effectiveness of partnerships between researchers and faith communities to promote health behaviors.

In 2013 Baskin coordinated the report "PLACE MATTERS for Health in Jefferson County, Alabama: The Status of Health Equity on the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, Alabama". The report was released fifty years after the protests in Birmingham marking when the Jim Crow laws were overruled. The report collected information of life expectancy, infant mortality and access to healthy food in various areas across the county, and studied how they depended on the demographics of the communities (including ethnicity and socioeconomic status). She identified that Black mothers in Jefferson County were 2.5 times more likely to die during child birth as white mothers, and that Black households in Jefferson County had annual incomes $22,000 below the federal poverty guideline.

In 2015 Baskin was awarded an National Cancer Institute grant to develop strategies to prevent obesity in African American women. Her research has shown the close relationships between cancer and obesity, and identified that African American women are most at risk.

Selected publications Awards and honours 1997 American Psychological Association Minority Fellow 2007 Jefferson County Public Health Hero Awards 2013 University of Alabama Institute for Rural Health Research Rural Health Heroes Award 2016 Max Cooper Award for Excellence in Research 2017 Fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine 2021 Dorothy Booz Black Award, Society of Counseling Psychology 2023 Fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research

Personal life Baskin and her husband Stacy have two daughters, Kennedy and Alexandria.