Sarah Hotham, S.Hotham@kent.ac.uk
£247,000 April 2023 - March 2025
The aim of this two-year project, which runs until March 2025, is to develop a collaborative partnership between the Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS) at the University of Kent and the Evidence & Implementation Department at Cancer Research UK (CRUK) to conduct research and evaluation focused on cancer prevention, screening, early diagnosis, and intervention design.
The UK has lower cancer survival rates than comparable countries, partly due to delays in individuals seeking help, leading to a higher likelihood of being diagnosed at a late stage. This may be due to interventions not being properly targeted to meet the needs and awareness gaps of different populations. There are also gaps in cancer knowledge, practice and policy amongst healthcare professionals. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in challenges in relation to cancer awareness, attitudes and seeking medical help (Quinn-Scoggins et al, 2021; Niksic et al, 2015, 2016). These issues highlight the need for delivering reliable and robust research to inform the development of culturally sensitive and targeted health interventions.
Cancer Research UK is the world’s leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research, influence, and information. The Policy, Information and Communications (PIC) Directorate leads CRUK’s efforts to ensure national strategies, the health system and research outputs are aligned to realise improvements for people affected by cancer. Within PIC, the Evidence and Implementation (E&I) Department generates, interprets, and translates evidence, data, and insights to influence policy and clinical practice. This informs CRUK strategies and activity across the organisation.
The academic partnership comprises four work packages:
- Re-validating Cancer Research UK’s latest version of the Cancer Awareness Measure (‘CAM’) survey. This was originally designed and validated in 2008-9 to measure public awareness of the signs, symptoms and risk factors of cancer as well as the barriers to seeking help but the survey has been significantly revised and expanded over time
- Exploring trends over time in Cancer Research UK’s public and health professional surveys (Cancer Awareness Measure and the Primary Care Cancer Survey respectively), including any variation by socio-demographic group
- Conducting evidence synthesis through systematic reviews of published literature
- Apply co-creation, implementation science and intervention design principles to develop resources for NHS teams funded via the Test, Evidence, Transition Programme.
Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement
The CRUK/CHSS partnership will be supported by public contributors, recruited by CHSS, who have a personal interest in or experience of cancer/cancer care. These representatives will support work across all four work packages.
About the Team
Cancer Research UK
The Social and Behavioural Research team at Cancer Research UK is responsible for conducting and commissioning methodologically robust research, evaluation, consultancy and training across two strategic themes. The Cancer Prevention and Services theme includes Policy-focused Prevention Research, which generates evidence to inform and enhance approaches to address preventable causes of cancer, such as tobacco, alcohol and obesity, Health Services Research to optimise the wider pathway and research environment and the Test Evidence Transition Programme, which develops and evaluates new models of cancer service delivery, providing funding and support to NHS teams. The Behavioural Evidence and Interventions theme includes Health Behaviour Research which collects and analyses self-reported data from key audiences to inform strategic planning and support external influencing, Intervention Design, applying behavioural science models, frameworks and methods to design evidence and theory-based behaviour change interventions and Testing & Evaluation, applying expertise in evaluation design, quantitative and qualitative methods and commissioning to conduct concept and creative testing and evaluate the impact of CRUK initiatives.
CHSS Team:
Dr Sarah Hotham, CHSS Senior Research Fellow, University of Kent, CHSS Co-Principal Investigator
Dr Maja Niksic, CHSS Co-Principal Investigator
Kate Day, CHSS Researcher
Dr Kate Gee, CHSS Researcher
Advisors:
Professor Lindsay Forbes, Clinical Professor of Public Health Academic Lead
Professor Stephen Peckham, CHSS Director & Professor of Health Policy
Public contributors:
Gill Wagstaff, contact via CHSS/Kate Day
Joyce Mansaray, (mansaray.joyce@yahoo.co.uk)
Anonymous
Contact:
Please contact Sarah Hotham if you have any queries about the partnership or its outputs: Email S.Hotham@kent.ac.uk
CHSS, University of Kent
Cornwallis George Allen Wing
Canterbury
CT2 7NF