Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Cancer is a disease that affects both children and adults all over the world and is the second cause of death in the world. In 2020, 10 million people died of cancer and in the next 10 years, up to 26 million people could die from cancer. Even though millions of people die of cancer every year, there are not enough cancer doctors to take care of people suffering from cancer. Worse still, many of the current cancer doctors globally are getting old and will soon retire. The situation is even worse in developing countries in Africa such as Nigeria where there are only 70 cancer doctors in a country of over 220 million people. Thus, people suffering from cancer experience delays in starting their treatment and this greatly reduces their chances of survival. Still in Nigeria, people that have cancer can wait up to 43 weeks from the time their cancer is detected to the time they will see a cancer doctor. Because these delays reduce survival rate, it is important to develop strategies to improve access to cancer care. One of such strategies is called task shifting where other professionals working in healthcare, such as pharmacists, are trained to provide extra services that will be beneficial to patients. For this research, we want to find out if pharmacists can be trained to help cancer doctors. We chose pharmacists because their training has been expanded to include caring for patients. Also, pharmacists are closer to the community and many people who have symptoms of illness usually consult a pharmacist first. In Nigeria, there are over 27,000 pharmacists and if they can be trained in some aspects of cancer care, they can help the 70 cancer doctors to attend to more patients which will improve chances of survival. Research in this area is limited, so I have developed a framework to guide more research that will generate evidence to influence policy changes to incorporate pharmacists in improving access to cancer care and reduce the number of people dying from cancer.