Do the cancers diagnosed in other family members mean something for you?
Possibly. Take a look.
Tag: Public Engagement
Study information – Social and workplace lived experiences of cancer patients in Newfoundland and Labrador
RECRUITMENT STARTED!!
Study Information
Study Title: Social and workplace lived experiences of cancer patients in Newfoundland and Labrador
Why do we want to conduct this research?
Cancer is a common disease affecting our population. Understanding experiences of individuals living with, through, or beyond cancer is important in order to inform social, workplace, and healthcare programs and policies.
What are our goals?
We aim to understand cancer patients’ experiences regarding their social and workplace interactions in Newfoundland and Labrador population.
We also would like to know whether these experiences differ between:
- individuals from different geographic regions of NL,
- individuals diagnosed with cancer at a young age (before 45 years of age), and
- individuals, who are members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
How are we going to achieve our goals?
We will invite interested individuals to join for a group discussion over the phone or in a virtual meeting. Meetings will be recorded so that we can transcribe the discussions. These discussions will then be analyzed to distill key points.
We will repeat these steps for each patient group that we describe above. We will then compare the key points identified from each group.
We will also ask you to provide us basic information about yourself, your economic status, employment, and disease (cancer).
Why participate in this study?
Our previous studies and interactions with cancer-affected individuals indicated that there may be changes in social and workplace experiences following a cancer diagnosis. By conducting this study, we hope that we will get a better understanding of these experiences.
Understanding cancer patients’ experiences about their social and workplace interactions in turn can help with future experiences and practices. For example, it can:
1) inform public education programs and campaigns
2) improve life experiences of cancer patients, their quality of life and social outcomes
3) implement better healthcare and social support services as well as workplace policies
4) move towards a more inclusive society
These changes then can positively impact the life and workplace experiences of future cancer patients in our province (and possibly beyond).
Who can participate in this study?
Individuals who:
-reside in Newfoundland and Labrador;
-are at least 18 years of age;
-have had a cancer diagnosed in the last 5 years (at the time of recruitment);
-have worked following their diagnoses;
-can use and have access to phone or internet and computer
are eligible to participate.
Additionally: we are looking for individuals diagnosed with cancer in each of the Regional Health Authority Regions (Eastern, Western, Central, Labrador and Grenfell),
or those who are diagnosed with cancer before the age of 45 years of age,
or those who identify as members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community
How can you participate?
Please contact the research team.
Ms. Krista King is the graduate student, who will be conducting the focus group discussions and other procedures. Krista will be happy to talk to you about this study and answer any of your questions. Krista can be reached at 709-864-4618 or krista.king@mun.ca.
Dr. Sevtap Savas is the scientist leading this project. She can be reached at 709-864 6507 or savas@mun.ca.
Health Research Ethics Board
If you have any questions regarding your rights as a participant, you can contact the Health Ethics Research Board in St. John’s at 709-777-6974 or info@hrea.ca.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST.
This Is Our Conversation_Potential links between cancer and age, social determinants of health, and access to information and healthcare services
Why do we have a slightly higher risk of developing and dying from cancer, compared to other provinces?
(I think somewhere I forgot to say “lack of”. Lack of healthy food and healthy environments are linked to adverse life events)
Talk to you soon!
This Is Our Conversation Series_Reflections as a cancer scientist and advocate during the MUN strike-2023
This Is Our Conversation Series_Cancer incidence and mortality numbers in Newfoundland and Labrador
These numbers hit the home hard – every year in Newfoundland and Labrador we do have a number of individuals diagnosed with cancer and die because of cancer. Take a look at today’s episode:
This Is Our Conversation Series_What is the chance of dying from cancer in Canada?
One post
One radio interview
One media piece
One piece of knowledge
One discussion
One public event
One social media post at a time
We will help transform the word #cancer from the #ElephantInTheRoom to a public knowledge
Knowledge can be empowering. Join the conversation and help spread the word.
Sevtap Savas, PhD. Jan 21,2023. St. John’s.
This is Our Conversation Series_How common is cancer in Canada?
Take a look at this short video and join our conversation – you can reach Sevtap Savas, PhD. at anytime if you have any comments.
MUN Research Week webinar on Public Engagement & Research
Grateful for Office of Public Engagement for organizing this webinar and making the recording publicly available!
I truly enjoyed being a part of this event, listening to my colleagues, and addressing participant questions.
Take a look!
Till next time,
Sevtap Savas, PhD, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador
NEWSLETTER – Public Interest Group on Cancer Research – 2022
We are pleased to report back to our community!
Please see the Newsletter below for our goals for and main achievements in 2022!
We wish all of you a wonderful Holiday Season and Happy New Year.
On behalf of the Public Interest Group on Cancer Research, Sevtap Savas.
Public Conference on Cancer – Feedback
We are very excited to summarize the feedback we received on the Public Conference on Cancer that was delivered on October 15, 2022.
A total of 52 participants completed the Feedback Survey. In addition, we received email and social media comments.
Overall, the feedback recieved was overwhelmingly positive! Thank you everyone who was involved and participated in this Conference, and made it a success story!
The key points made by Survey respondents can be summarized as follows:
- For all talks combined, around 95% of the respondents agreed that “The sessions were presented in an understandable manner” and “I learnt valuable information” – these indicate the effectiveness of the event and speakers in exchanging knowledge
- The perspectives and experiences delivered by the patient and family members speakers were impactful – this highlights the importance of including patient perspectives when designing and delivering public events focusing on knowledge exchange
- Learning about patient and family perspectives as well as the cancer screening and support services available in the province were the two most valuable parts of the Conference – this indicates that we met our objectives, as exchanging knowledge about these topics were among the main goals of our Conference
- Preventing tech issues, scheduling more time for questions, and making the registration process simpler are among the top priorities to address in the future events – we really appreciate these feedback and are committed to work on them in future events
- A number of great topics were suggested for future events, such as palliative cancer care and specific cancers – these suggestions indicate need and interest for future public events
- Respondents came from a variety of age groups, but mostly from Eastern Health region – this latter point indicates that we need to work harder next time to reach residents in every corner of the province
- A variety of recruitment strategies helped recruit the respondents, but social media and the Memorial University communications were the two most effective ways to do so
- A part of the respondents were outside of NL – this indicated that the Public Conference on Cancer was not geographically restrictive
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Examples to participant comments are as follows:
“So many valuable points. The goals of this conference was very well addressed.”
“Personal stories that reflected the presenters’ journeys provided meaningful takeaway and reflection.”
“Provided a forum for the general population to learn more.”
“This was a fantastic event and extremely well done.“
“Do some sound and tech testing / test runs with pre-recorded presentations ahead of time to limit technical difficulties.”
“It was fantastically organized, the diversity of the voices, the mix of health professionals, management/directors of the health care organizations, people who’ve lived the journey.”
“Possibility to re-watch/listen to the talk/presentation in the future might be useful for other people who could not attend it.”
“Maybe, giving presenters a little more time for their topics.“
“The registration process may be intimidating to members of the public.”
“It was an excellent event, and I don’t think you guys could have done any better.”
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We are humbled by its impact and how well this Conference brought together all stakeholders; prompted us to learn from each other (particularly from the individuals affected by cancer); and motivated us to organize more public events on cancer in the future.
We sincerely thank:
- all who provided feedback and telling us how we have done and how we could do better next time
- all who helped organize the Public Conference on Cancer and contributed to its planning and delivery, including but not limited to the Public Interest Group on Cancer Research, Dr. Teri Stuckless, and Alicia Follett
- all speakers that delivered talk and invited experts that addressed the questions of participants during the Conference
- everyone who helped with recruitment
- all Conference participants for making it such a dynamic, interactive, effective, and memorable public event
- Melissa MacLean, Anuj Charan, and Dan DeLong from OPED for setting up and managing the virtual Conference platform, taking care of the tech issues, and implementing the registration page and feedback survey
- NLSUPPORT for supporting this Conference and Discipline of Oncology at Faculty of Medicine for financially supporting it, and
- Office of Public Engagement at MUN for providing us funds (Accelerator Funds) to organize this Conference – without your commitment and support, we could not achieve this
It was a highly rewarding experience. We hope to see you in our next public outreach and engagement events!
