Anita Kinney, PhD, RN, leads the Cancer Control and Population Science Research Program at Huntsman Cancer Institute and is an associate professor in the Division of Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She holds a Jon and Karen Huntsman Presidential Professorship in Cancer Research and is an epidemiologist with a clinical background as a oncology nurse practitioner. Kinney directs a research team that focuses on discovering ways to ensure optimal translation of genetic and other scientific discoveries to the population as a means of preventing cancer and improving cancer-related outcomes.

As a population scientist, she applies a combination of epidemiology, behavioral science, and clinical perspectives to study cancer-related issues. Her overarching research goal is to understand variation in health outcomes and attitudes, and to use this information to develop effective interventions that facilitate informed decision making and positive changes in health behaviors. Kinney is particularly interested in studying these issues in socially and geographically underserved populations. She is involved with numerous peer-reviewed research studies, including two population-based randomized trials of remote individualized genetic risk communication interventions focusing on rural and other underserved populations who are at increased risk for familial cancer. Kinney and her team hope that the successful completion of these two studies move the field forward in important ways, as findings may have high public health impact on resolving geographic health disparities and increasing access to evidence-based high quality personalized genetic risk interventions for remote populations and be useful to government agencies and third party payers to determine reimbursement policies for telephone-delivered cancer genetic services. Kinney is also directing a research project that examines the impact of Tai Chi, a mind-body intervention, on quality of life, physical fitness, and biological markers among elderly cancer survivors. The study’s findings may lead to new discoveries about ways to promote a more positive cancer survival experience in older cancer survivors and how mind-body interventions influence cancer-related outcomes.

After earning a master’s degree in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, she earned a PhD degree in epidemiology from the University of Texas School of Public Health. Following a National Cancer Institute-funded postdoctoral research fellowship in cancer control and epidemiology at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she joined the University of Utah faculty in 1998. She has been an investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute since 2000 and currently holds several grants from the National Cancer Institute.