Alcoholic beverage consumption causes millions of deaths worldwide each year and contributes to injuries, violence, liver cirrhosis, social disruption and at least seven different types of cancer.

In fact, the World Health Organization has increased global surveillance of alcohol consumption and encourages national efforts to apply evidence-based policies to reduce consumption.

Susan M. Gapstur is an epidemiologist with over 30 years of scientific experience who has focused her research on medical, biological and lifestyle determinants of cancer risk, including alcoholic beverage consumption. She’ll tackle the link between alcohol and cancer risk during  this year’s Richard V. Lee Lectureship in Global Health, titled “Alcoholic Beverage Consumption and Cancer Risk: A Growing Body of Scientific Evidence.”

The lecture takes place from noon to 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 3 in Farber Hall 144, South Campus. Registration for Gapstur’s talk is available online.

Gapstur was senior vice president of the American Cancer Society’s Behavioral and Epidemiology Research Group from 2009 to 2020.  Before that, she was a professor in the Department of Preventative Medicine at Northwestern University and the associate director of cancer prevention and control in the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University in Chicago.

In 2007 she participated in an International Agency for Research on Cancer expert panel review and evaluation of the scientific evidence on the carcinogenicity of alcohol, and in 2017 was lead author of the chapter on alcohol and cancer risk in the textbook “Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention (4th edn).”

After leaving the American Cancer Society, Gapstur chaired a U.S. National Cancer Institute-sponsored scientific workshop and public webinar that reviewed what is known about and identified knowledge gaps on alcohol consumption across the cancer continuum.

Over the past 15 months, she has worked with the International Agency for Research on Cancer, organizing and developing a handbook of cancer prevention that will provide the first comprehensive review and evaluation of the scientific evidence on the potential reduction in alcohol-related cancer risk due to reduction or cessation of alcoholic beverage consumption.

In addition, she serves as the responsible officer for the development of the next handbook, which will focus on evaluating the effectiveness of alcohol control policies to reduce consumption.

The Richard V. Lee Lectureship in Global Health is an annual event focused on aspects of global health that honors Richard V. Lee, former faculty member at UB.