Pictured: Keith J Watts
LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 28, 2026) — Keith J. Watts, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the University of Kentucky College of Social Work (CoSW), has been selected to receive a Health Disparities Research Loan Repayment Program award from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Kentucky ranks first in the nation for both cancer incidence and cancer mortality, with the heaviest burdens falling on state’s Appalachian counties.
The NIH Loan Repayment Programs are designed to recruit and retain highly qualified health professionals in biomedical and biobehavioral research careers. The Health Disparities Research program supports researchers working to better understand and address unequal health outcomes among populations that have historically experienced barriers to research, prevention and care.
Over the next two years, Watts will advance his project, “A Multi-Pillar Program to Investigate the Bio-Behavioral Mechanisms of Cancer Disparities.”
“For me, this award is nothing short of a blessing,” Watts said. “It is life-transforming support that affirms the importance of this work and gives me greater freedom to pursue it fully. I am deeply grateful to my mentors and colleagues at UK, especially Dr. Justin Xavier Moore, who will serve as my designated mentor for this project.”
Watts’ scholarship examines how chronic stress and discrimination shape long-term health, and how belonging to a supportive community can protect against those effects, including cancer risk and prevention.
The new project will expand on that scholarship by examining the biological and behavioral mechanisms that link those experiences to cancer outcomes. The award will support work drawing on national cohort data and an ongoing annual statewide community health survey Watts helped design.
Watts’ selection reflects both the national significance of his research and the interdisciplinary environment available to researchers at UK. In addition to his role in the CoSW, Watts is a core faculty member in the Center for Health, Engagement and Transformation, a member of the NCI-designated UK Markey Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program, a 2025-26 fellow in Markey’s LAUNCH (Leaders Advancing UNity and Cancer Health) Leadership Academy and an affiliate faculty member in African American and Africana Studies.
These connections allow Watts to bring a social work perspective into collaborative cancer research while drawing on expertise in public health, medicine, behavioral science and community engagement.
His recent collaborative research has examined the relationship between identity, cumulative stress and cancer mortality. In a study co-authored with Moore — an associate professor in UK College of Medicine, serving as assistant director of Population Science, and assistant director of Community Impact at Markey — and other researchers, the team analyzed nationally representative health data to examine cancer mortality among lesbian, gay and bisexual adults experiencing high allostatic load, the cumulative physiological “wear and tear” of chronic stress.
The study, published in March in Cancer Causes & Control, analyzing 12,470 U.S. adults found that sexual minority adults with high allostatic load had nearly three times the risk of dying from cancer as heterosexual adults with low allostatic load, even after accounting for race and ethnicity, education, gender and marital status. Notably, person-level factors (income, poor self-reported health, frequent health care visits, and having seen a mental health provider) each accounted for a small share of this gap. The findings underscore the importance of looking beyond individual behaviors to understand how social and structural conditions can shape long-term health outcomes.
A separate study that Watts co-authored in JAMA Network Open found a similar pattern along lines of education. Analyzing data on more than 20,000 U.S. men, the team reported that men with high allostatic load who had not completed high school were about 1.7 times likely to die of cancer than men with a college degree and low allostatic load, after accounting for age, income, smoking and prior health conditions. Before those adjustments, they were nearly five times as likely.
That connection carries particular weight in Kentucky, where 40 of the state’s 120 counties have experienced persistent poverty for decades and low educational attainment is among the factors researchers link to the state’s cancer burden. Using collaborative and community-engaged research methods, Watts seeks to translate research findings into interventions, policies and systems that better respond to the experiences of the communities they are intended to serve.
The Loan Repayment Program award represents a significant investment in Watts’ continued development as a cancer disparities researcher. By reducing the burden of educational debt in exchange for a sustained research commitment, the program allows researchers to dedicate more time and attention to work addressing pressing national health challenges.
For Watts, the award also affirms a research agenda centered on ensuring the benefits of cancer research, prevention and care reach communities that have not always experienced them equitably.
Through his project, mentorship and partnerships that cross both disciplinary and institutional lines, Watts will continue investigating the factors that drive unequal cancer outcomes and identifying opportunities to build more responsive and equitable systems of care.