Cancer Research

Building Community Capacity for Psychosocial Support Services for Latinos with Cancer

A REDES En Acción and Center for Aging in Diverse Communities researcher, Anna Nápoles-Springer, PhD, and Carmen Ortíz, PhD, of Círculo de Vida were recently awarded a California Breast Cancer Research Program Community Collaborative Award for $100,000 for one year, beginning July 2005.  For the grant, a community partnership has formed that includes the two Co-Principal Investigators, oncologists, breast cancer survivors and staff from two community organizations (Círculo de Vida and Una Mano Amiga), representatives from local hospitals and clinics (Samaritan House Free Clinic, San Mateo Medical Center, Mills-Peninsula Hospital, and St. Luke’s Hospital), a grass roots health promotion agency (Nuestro Canto de Salud), and a local community health worker certificate program (Cañada College).  The research questions articulated by the partners on this project are: 1) How can we increase awareness among Spanish-speaking Latinas that psychosocial services are part of the continuum of cancer care? and 2) How can we best identify and train Latinas who have had breast cancer to be effective support counselors?

The two community organizations, one with extensive experience (Círculo de Vida) and the other new to providing support services for women with breast cancer (Una Mano Amiga), will work with a Latina cancer researcher from UCSF to identify optimum outreach and support strategies and develop a training program to prepare Latina breast cancer survivors as peer support counselors.  The training program will be based on an 11-year program, Círculo de Vida, developed by Dr. Ortíz, and formative research to be conducted in this pilot project.  This study will yield a transferable, culturally-appropriate outreach and support intervention to increase participation in psychosocial services, and ultimately improve quality of life among Latinas with breast cancer.  Furthermore, it will also train a core of peer support counselors and increase the capacity of community organizations to provide psychosocial support and referral services to women with breast cancer who might need such services. 

Communication of Cancer Risk between Clinicians and Patients from Diverse Populations

Investigators: Eliseo Pérez-Stable MD, Celia Kaplan DrPH, Sue E. Kim PhD, Sabrina Wong PhD, Judith Walsh MD, and George Sawaya MD.  

Funded by: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and National Cancer Institute

Early detection of breast, colorectal and cervical cancers has been shown to decrease mortality in clinical studies leading to consensus recommendations for routine cancer screening.  Although substantial differences persist in mammography screening rates by ethnicity, new developments in breast cancer prevention are being incorporated into clinical practice at a rapid pace.  Relatively little is known about the extent these developments are accepted and used by women of different ethnic groups.  Evidence to support routine screening for colorectal cancer requires that the low rates of screening procedures be addressed for all ethnic groups.  Cervical cancer screening with Pap smears has been widely implemented with a substantial reduction in mortality in all groups, and although selected high risk-groups such as immigrant women continue to be screened less frequently, over-screening is quite prevalent.

This study uses the clinical settings of prevention of breast, colorectal and cervical cancers as a laboratory to evaluate patient perception of risk and compare methods for conveying this risk in women from four ethnic groups--White, African American, Latino and Asian/Pacific Islanders.  We are collecting measures of satisfaction with cancer screening decisions, patient-clinician communication, and clinical outcomes.  Ultimately, our goal is to develop a decision-assisting tool to help patients and clinicians in decision-making for cancer prevention.