Committee Equity in cancer
Chair: Meeke Hoedjes
Members: Saskia Duijts, Nicole Ezendam, Simone Oerlemans, Kelly de Ligt, Tom Bootsma, Fabiola Muller, Sara Polak & Helen Driessen
The equity in cancer committee focuses on themes such as representative research, social inequality and innovative and inclusive research methods within psychosocial oncology. This committee, in collaboration with the field, works to make research and care more equitable by focusing on the inclusion of underserved groups, such as:
- people with a migratory background people without an employment contract
- people living longer with cancer
- people with a rare cancer diagnosis
- sexually and gender diverse people
Inequity cannot easily be predicted by a single variable such as low health literacy. It is precisely the complex interaction between different factors that is important. For instance, in rare cancers, people with high health literacy have been found to experience higher burden because of unanswered questions and high need of information, compared to people with low health literacy. The equity in cancer committee strives to accumulate and share the best ways to make psychosocial oncology research more inclusive, from start to finish. Think of: interpreters, a translation of questionnaires for non‑native Dutch speaking people, or paper questionnaires for people with limited knowledge of or access to digital questionnaires. Activities conducted by this committee include mapping challenges and best practices among POCON members as well as international collaboration to create strategies that enhance our aims of fostering equity in psychosocial oncology.
Do you have any questions, or do you want to contribute to this committee? Please contact Meeke Hoedjes.