Dayanara Ruiz is a first-year PhD student in the Health Behavior Research program at the Keck School of Medicine. Dayanara was selected as one of the faces of the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) breast cancer awareness campaign, Bring Your Brave, and is part of the “Beyond the Diagnosis” series in which women under the age of 45 share their experiences with having a breast cancer-related diagnosis. As a BRCA2 carrier, Dayanara shares her experiences living with the mutation, hoping to inform other women in the community. This is just the beginning of the campaign to mark the start of an ongoing conversation with more videos to be released over the next year.
Dayanara participated in all of the campaign videos; however, Being a Previvor is the video most focused on her. More videos will be released over the next year.
Prior to becoming a PhD student, Dayanara worked in the non-profit sector doing research, community engagement, and policy advocacy for children’s health equity, specifically mental health and early childhood development. Dayanara’s current research interests include health equity in breast cancer and genetics through community-based participatory research and health education. She holds an MPH from USC with my capstone thesis titled “A Needs Assessment of Genetic and Hereditary Breast Cancer Awareness in Southern California Women Diagnosed with a Genetic Mutation.”