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Getting to Know Ivan H.C. Wu, MA, Ph.D.

“My career so far has been non-linear; I’ve always looked for something interesting and pursued it,” claims Ivan Wu, currently a Cancer Prevention Research Training Program Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in M.D. Anderson’s Department of Health Disparities Research.  Armed with a B.A. in Psychology from University of San Francisco, California, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, Dr. Wu was initially interested in a career in physics, but moved toward social sciences in college.  “I found psychology melded my interest in research and human behavior, and I really enjoyed being able to help people while conducting science,” he adds.

Dr. Wu originally became interested in health disparities research studying how Chinese immigrants manage diabetes and understand the health care system at USFCA.  This led to studying mental health among immigrants in the U.S., and working with racial/ethnic minority veterans at the New Mexico VA Health Care System in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  “I’ve had the honor to help many people in one-on-one settings,” he explains.  “But I wanted to get more exposure to intervening at the community level, and followed the path to join the Health Disparities Research Department here at M.D. Anderson.”

Among many studies, Dr. Wu is currently focused on a pilot study to understand the sleep practices and implement a sleep intervention for sedentary and obese African American adults in Houston.  “Sleep is often an afterthought in our health practices until you feel the pain of sleep deprivation.  Worse yet, insufficient sleep increases the risk of health problems, and sleep deprivation has become a norm for many.  I am studying how the lack of sleep can help prevent cancer by preventing obesity and increasing physical activity.  We have adapted a four-week sleep intervention for sedentary African Americans who don’t get enough sleep to help them overcome sleep barriers, improve sleep hygiene and ultimately change their relationship with sleep.  We will meet with them once a week to assess their progress and teach healthy sleep habits.”

“We know that a third of American adults are sleep deprived – getting less than the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep – and our research shows that a staggering 60% of the local African American churchgoing population is sleep deprived.  These sleep disparities can have a major health impact, such as increased risk for mortality, diabetes, obesity and cancer.  We hope to better understand the struggles they face to improve the quality and duration of their sleep in a culturally-sensitive, meaningful way.  By understanding sleep in one community, we can then adapt and model the same efforts for other communities using community-centered approaches, and shape thinking to impact cancer prevention.”

Dr. Wu has spent 12 months at M.D. Anderson, and enjoys interacting with physicians in different disciplines around the institution.  “I am truly grateful to be doing the kind of work I do in health disparities research.  Learning how our work dovetails with energy balance and the importance of sleep and healthy weight in human behavior and cancer prevention is understudied and has the potential to make a great impact among minority communities. And M.D. Anderson is an amazing place to do it.”