Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

A significant gap exists in the Canadian cancer care system to address the needs of growing numbers of patients surviving cancer. Despite being cured, many survivors experience life-long physical, psychological, sexual, social, and financial challenges after treatment is complete. Survivors are increasingly seeking out self care health promotion strategies such as diet, exercise, and complementary medicine (e.g. natural health products, acupuncture) to address these challenges and maximize health outcomes. Emerging research shows significant value of many health promotion behaviors (e.g. exercise, diet, weight maintenance, Vitamin D) in reducing cancer recurrence risk, managing symptoms, and promoting optimal coping and wellbeing. Safe and informed practice of self care health promotion strategies could therefore improve survivors' morbidity outcomes and quality of life, reducing unnecessary health care resource utilization and costs. However, in Canada there is a paucity of comprehensive programs, tools or established models of care to offer survivors decision-making and ongoing support regarding the practice of self care health promotion strategies beyond the immediate post treatment period. To inform development of these resources, this study seeks to explicate survivors' current and desired health promotion knowledge, practices, unmet needs and impacts (including economic); and health care providers' recommendations on optimal deployment of resources in support of survivors' self care health promotion behaviors. Study findings will inform development of explicit tools, resources and models of care offering survivors consistent and effective support for practice of potentially life prolonging and enhancing health promotion strategies. Study findings also will inform tool development to guide future analysis of the economic impact of survivors' self care health promotion practices, providing important new knowledge for survivorship model of care design.