Dr. Qasim Hussaini is a medical oncologist and health systems researcher at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, with a research focus on health systems, law, and policy as it pertains to oncologic care. His current work examines disparities in financial/economic instability, neighborhood and social context, and how policy could be effectively utilized to improve care access and delivery. He uses large database cancer, financial, and drug pricing registries, and prospective cohort linkages across these studies. During the 2022-23 academic year, he served as Chief Fellow, and set the education direction for the Johns Hopkins Hematology-Oncology fellowship program – including spearheading innovative new curricula in Cancer Policy & Health Systems, Quality Improvement and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. During this time, he also served as an ASCO JCO-OP Editorial Fellow.
Dr. Hussaini has previously been the recipient of Conquer Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award for his work investigating the role of housing and mortgage discrimination in driving poor cancer outcomes. He has also received multiple Research Merit Awards from the Conquer Cancer Foundation for his work on biosimilar spending and price competition, rural-urban disparities in mortality in GI cancers, price transparency at NCI cancer centers, historical housing discrimination and cancer outcomes, and financial toxicity in patients undergoing BMT. Prior to fellowship, Dr. Hussaini completed his residency training at the Duke University Hospital where his primary research focus on financial toxicity and institutional medical debt. He was the recipient of the Robert Califf Research Award, Eugene-Stead Research Award, and Faculty-Resident Research Award toward this work. During medical school, he focused on health policy in South East Asia. In the short term, he aims to study impact of health policy and law on oncologic care. In the long term, he aims to design and implement interventions at the provider, institutional and federal-policy levels that improve care access and outcomes for patients with cancer.