Anna Czene, Vice President, Corporate Communications & DEI Lead, CareDx, Inc.
According to research, minorities (Blacks and Hispanics) have a higher incidence of precursor diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity, which contribute to disproportionately higher rates of kidney and heart disease, and the need for an organ transplant. One of the challenges with published research is it doesn’t often address disparities across all stages of a patient’s journey or encompass various organ transplants.
At CareDx, a company dedicated to improving transplant patient outcomes, Anna Czene aims to address this lack of information by coalescing these disparate but related issues across the patient journey. The company has worked on several initiatives to accomplish this task. First off, Anna led the development of one of the first white papers to examine racial and ethnic disparities in the organ transplant ecosystem with a focus on kidney and heart where minorities are greatly affected. She led CareDx’s efforts to bring the transplant community together on this important issue by co-hosting the panel discussion, “Tackling Health Equity in Organ Transplantation,” with the Minority Organ Tissue Transplantation Education Program. Many clinicians attended with many expressing a strong interest in participating in future events.
Anna also played a key role in creating greater awareness around UC Davis’ Pluralist Health Program, an innovative two-year research initiative that CareDx sponsored, which aims to improve access to organ donation and transplantation in underserved communities in Sacramento using social media interventions. If successful, the goal is to expand throughout California and nationally. Additionally, she worked with UC Davis to help facilitate their 2nd Annual Transplantation Health Equity Summit, a successful event which many healthcare stakeholders attended.
