Grant: Operating Grant - Knowledge to Action Grants -CCSRI

Improving the utilization of cancer screening services in a northern indigenous community In Canada, 38% of women and 41% of men can expect to be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetimes. Indigenous peoples (IP) in Arctic Canada have a high cancer mortality rate, and low usage of cancer screening services (CSS), when compared to other Canadian regions. The Indigenous and Global Health Research Group (IGHRG) recently completed the ACCESS (Attitudes toward Cancer in Indigenous Communities & Examining Uptake of Cancer Screening Services) project examining knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors towards breast, cervical, and colorectal CSS in communities in the Northwest Territories (NT). Preliminary results show many barriers to CSS including: limited participant knowledge of CSS procedure, purpose, frequency, or age of initial screening and limited knowledge of the affected human anatomy parts. A culturally appropriate intervention program building on the existing knowledge gained from the ACCESS project is clearly needed to improve the CSS situation of Northern Canada’s IP. The IGHRG, community stakeholders and knowledge users from the ACCESS project met several times to discuss the situation and agreed on the urgent need to collaboratively develop a culturally appropriate intervention to close the gaps identified in the ACCESS project by addressing the barriers for uptake of CSS. The IGHRG proposes a 2 year knowledge to action project to work with the community of Fort Good Hope, NT. The team will translate recently gathered knowledge and evidence from: 1) the ACCESS project (2015), 2) an extensive systematic review on the social determinants of health in Indigenous populations (2015) and 3) a systematic review on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors towards cancer screening in Indigenous populations worldwide1, to: Objective 1: Work closely with the Community Advisory Board (CAB) to develop culturally appropriate educational materials, including posters, pamphlets, and videos regarding cancer and CSS to meet the needs of IP in remote communities. Objective 2: Utilize, modify and refine the educational materials based on feedback from community members, Indigenous organization representatives, local health professionals, and other CSS stakeholders. Objective 3: Translate the educational materials into the local dialect spoken by the community members in Fort Good Hope and distribute to all relevant community organizations, including the health centre. Objective 4: Evaluate the impact of the educational materials on community member CSS knowledge. The team will work closely with the community to use the results of the team’s previous research on CSS in northern Indigenous communities to develop educational materials including videos and print materials. These resources will then be evaluated by IP and local health professionals in Fort Good Hope through sharing circles and key informant interviews. The materials will then be refined based on the feedback. These materials will also be translated into the local dialect to improve uptake of CSS. Early detection of cancer greatly increases the chances for successful treatment and screening programs have an important role in early detection. For numerous reasons, , although patients understand the importance of early detection, they often fail to comply with recommendations for screening activities. The development of culturally- appropriate and community led and designed materials for Indigenous men and women will support the utilization of CSS to help prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer earlier. This intervention is expected to improve the use of CSS, due to improved knowledge of CSS, in turn resulting in improvements across the cancer trajectory, including earlier detection of cancer and reduced cancer morbidity and mortality through earlier treatment. These materials can then be adapted for use in Indigenous communities across Canada.