Transforming Cancer Care for Racialized Young Adults
Transforming Cancer Care for Racialized Young Adults
Annually, over 8,300 young adults, aged 15-39, are diagnosed with cancer in Canada. Cancer care systems have limited capacity to meet the unique and complex needs of young adults. Simultaneously, there is little research exploring the cancer care realities, needs, and priorities of racialized young adults and there is an urgent need to better understand and transform cancer care for racialized young adults.
“I had to prove that I was the kind of person they wanted to save.”
-Racialized young adult with lived experience with cancer.
This project, funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research Pediatric Cancer Research Initiative, seeks to work in collaboration with racialized young adults and cancer care allies to: 1) better understand the lived experiences, needs and priorities of racialized young adults, and 2) inform and improve cancer care for racialized young adults and help to reduce systemic barriers.
In an effort to influence cancer care for to better support and respond to the unique needs and priorities of racialized young adults this project includes:
a series of in-depth interviews with racialized young adults with lived experience of cancer,
creative engagements with young adults to explore emergent themes and further theorize findings,
workshops with clinicians and related care providers to review research findings and identify opportunities for capacity building and change, and
workshops with racialized young adults, clinicians, and related care providers to share experiences and needs and to identify priorities and pilot actions to improve care going forward.
Through this important work we are learning so much and we are working to integrate the learnings across all of our projects within Anew.
View recently published learnings in Current Oncology.
Partners include: racialized young adults, Royal Roads University, Young Adult Cancer Canada, the Innovation Support Unit at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Family Practice, BC Cancer, BC Cancer Research, InspireHealth and BC SUPPORT Unit.
This research is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Royal Roads University, the Vancouver Foundation and Michael Smith Health Research BC.
