Health Services for Cancer Survivors. Practice, Policy and Research

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Health Services for Cancer Survivors Practice, Policy, and Research Michael Feuerstein and Patricia A. Ganz, editors

Between early detection and current medical advances, more cancer patients are living longer post-treatment. But all too often, survivors’ lives are complicated by medical, psychosocial, and economic challenges that their providers downplay as the “new normal.” Health Services for Cancer Survivors replaces this scenario with an integrative, evidence-based framework for improving the health of survivors over the long term, across clinical settings and specific diagnoses. Emphasizing an interdisciplinary team approach, contributors review the current state of survivor care and model a proactive future. Human factors, particularly in the areas of symptoms and symptom reporting, health costs, and individualized care, are highlighted as keys to survivors’ health, well-being, and functioning. The book offers diverse perspectives, informative data, and real-world case studies as it:

• Defines quality health care in the context of cancer survivor experience.
• Introduces the Cancer Survivorship Care Plan, a first-steps strategy for integrating survivor care.
• Pinpoints specific areas for improvement, including symptom management, health behaviors, rehabilitation, psychological well-being, and disparities in health care access and delivery.
• Outlines practical strategies for optimizing primary, oncological, palliative community-based, and end-of-life care.
• Provides detailed information on epidemiology, health economics, and other areas critical to clinical decision-making.
• Analyzes the new health care reform measures as an opportunity to reform survivor care.

Health Services for Cancer Survivors is essential, stimulating reading for a wide range of practitioners, including primary care physicians, health psychologists, social workers, nurses, physical and occupational therapists, and public health professionals.

Content Level » Professional/practitioner

Keywords » Behavioral health - Cancer and exercise - Cancer and nutrition - Cancer prevention - Cancer recurrence - Cancer surveillance - Cancer survivorship - Cancer survivorship clinic - Cancer survivorship plan - Health behavior - Health care disparities - Health communication - Post-treatment symptoms - Self-management - Survivor

Related subjects » Health Psychology & Behavioral Medicine - Medicine - Oncology & Hematology - Public Health

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part 1. Current Concerns

1. Specific challenges in optimizing the health care of survivors
2. Providers’ and cancer survivors’ concerns about health care
3. Epidemiology of recurrent and new cancers
4. Symptoms over time: What is their role in surveillance?
5. Access to care among cancer survivors
6. Symptoms among cancer survivors: Biobehavioral mechanisms and current health care response

Part 2. Clinical Management

7. General health
8. Targeting provider-survivor communication
9. Oncologic health
10. Health behaviors: General strategies (diet, weight loss, exercise, stress)
11. Behavioral health
12. Functional outcomes
13. Self-management
14. The cancer survivorship clinic
15. The cancer survivorship plan

Part 3. Current Needs and Future Directions

16. What works, and what should be stepped up?
17. Future challenges and potential solutions

AUTHORS & EDITORS

Michael Feuerstein, Ph.D., MPH is Professor of Public Health in the Departments of Medical and Clinical Psychology and Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland. He is also Director of the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at that institution. In addition, he is Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Division of Behavioral Medicine, at Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC. Dr. Feuerstein is editor-in-chief of Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation and Journal of Cancer Survivorship, as well as editor of Handbook of Cancer Survivorship (2007) and Cancer Survivors and Work (2009). He is a Fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, the American Psychological Association, and the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and a Member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the Association for Advancement of Behavioral Therapy, the International Association for the Study of Pain, and the New York Academy of Sciences. Patricia Ganz, M.D. is Professor of Health Services in the School of Public Health, Professor of Medicine in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Vice Chair of the Department of Health Services. She teaches health care practices and variations and ethical issues in public health. She is also the Director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Research of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA and leads a large research group that applies the scientific disciplines of public health (epidemiology, health services, behavioral sciences, biostatistics) to research on the prevention, detection, treatment, and supportive care of cancer. In addition, she is associate editor of Journal of Clinical Oncology and Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and is a member of the editorial board of the Cochrane Breast Cancer Group. In 1999 she was named an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professor and in 2007 she became a member of the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Ganz has devoted the past 25 years to the study of quality-of-life outcomes in cancer and other chronic diseases.