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

People living in rural areas are often thought to be at risk of poor cancer outcomes, including unnecessary delay in the time it takes to receive a diagnosis after presenting to their health care provider with symptoms. Limited availability of health care services in rural areas is thought to underlie the impact of rurality on delayed diagnosis. However, issues of the availability of care in rural areas have not been well documented. There is a need to better understand how the availability of cancer care resources varies across Ontario and how these variations may impact the diagnostic path of colorectal cancer. Project description: I will investigate how the availability of health care services is related to the timeliness of the diagnostic interval for colorectal cancer patients living in Ontario. I will also look at how events in the diagnostic path, such as number of diagnostic tests and referrals to specialists, vary depending on the availability of health care services. I will use data about colorectal cancer patients, providers and the contacts that patients had with the health care system to develop a measure of health care service availability. I will look for differences in the characteristics of the diagnostic process based on the health care services that are available to patients across Ontario. Impact: My results will identify areas in Ontario that are at risk of delayed diagnosis due to insufficient resources. These areas could be the target of interventions to improve service provision which could ultimately improve patient survival and costs to the health care system by ensuring that patients are diagnosed in a timely and effective manner.