Laura C. Pinheiro has emerged as a leading voice in documenting and addressing the systemic factors that create cancer health inequities for Black Americans. As Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine and recently appointed co-leader of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center’s Office of Community Outreach and Engagement, Pinheiro employs rigorous quantitative and qualitative research to expose how structural racism impacts cancer outcomes.
Pinheiro’s groundbreaking work has demonstrated that Black patients face significantly worse care coordination than white patients, experiencing more preventable adverse events including unnecessary repeat tests, dangerous drug-drug interactions, and avoidable emergency department visits and hospitalizations. Her national study using data from the REGARDS cohort revealed that Black participants were markedly more likely to report preventable harm due to communication breakdowns in healthcare delivery.
In 2024, Pinheiro was named a Cancer Moonshot Scholar, receiving a $3.2 million seven-year grant to investigate how structural determinants including unemployment, incarceration, education inequities, and economic conditions drive cardiovascular disparities among cancer survivors. Her research shows Black adults with cancer have twice the risk of poor cardiovascular outcomes compared to white adults. Pinheiro’s innovative framework examines how these upstream structural factors work through cancer biology, health behaviors, and psychosocial wellbeing.
Her work extends beyond documentation to action. As a Brazilian immigrant health services researcher, Pinheiro has established the Cornell Center for Health Equity and developed real-world interventions to improve diabetes management in cancer patients. She has shown that social determinants of health dramatically increase cancer mortality risk, with Black individuals disproportionately experiencing multiple adverse determinants simultaneously.
Learn more:
– Weill Cornell Medicine Cancer Moonshot Scholar announcement: https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2024/11/dr-laura-c-pinheiro-named-cancer-moonshot-scholar
– Research on preventable adverse events in care coordination: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8446307/
– Meyer Cancer Center Community Outreach leadership: https://meyercancer.weill.cornell.edu/news/2025-08-11/laura-pinheiro-phd-mph-appointed-co-lead-community-outreach-and-engagement-sandra
