Jill Biden to visit San Diego this week for cancer prevention, veterans events

© Provided by San Diego Union Tribune FILE - First Lady Jill Biden hosts a conversation on women's empowerment at the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Mexico City on Jan. 9, 2023. (Ginnette Riquelme / Associated Press)

First Lady Jill Biden will visit San Diego this week to discuss the administration's "cancer moonshot" efforts and initiatives for military and veteran families.

Biden, who herself had surgery last month to remove a common type of skin cancer, will arrive Friday afternoon and visit a local health clinic to discuss federal efforts to improve cancer screenings and early detection programs for communities with limited healthcare access.

The administration's moonshot initiative, which Joe Biden spearheaded while vice president, aims to improve cancer treatments and conditions for patients and to reduce death rates by at least 50 percent within 25 years. Its goals include resuming cancer screenings missed during the pandemic, reducing smoking and getting more patients into clinical cancer trials.

Later Friday the first lady will address crew and families of the USS Gabrielle Giffords, a U.S. Navy warship based in San Diego. Biden will speak about her "Joining Forces" initiative, which helps military families with jobs, entrepreneurship, health care and child care and education.

On Saturday she will visit the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at Veterans Village of San Diego in Oceanside to meet with health care providers and military families.

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.