The Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program, the first population-based cancer registry in LA, was envisioned by cancer epidemiologist Brian Henderson in 1969. It commenced in 1972 with researchers Thomas Mack, Malcolm Pike, Susan Preston-Martin and John Hisserich. The program continues to collect and analyze information on all new cancer diagnoses to this day, and has become one of the world’s most productive cancer registries.

The Department of Community & Family Medicine was founded in 1978, with Brian Henderson appointed the inaugural chair by then-Dean Allen W. Mathies, Jr. Henderson would later become dean of the USC medical school 2004 to 2007 and Kenneth T Norris Jr Chair in Cancer Prevention.