Development of a culturally adapted pediatric cancer awareness campaign in Tanzania

NIH RePORTER · NIH · P30 · $199,940 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

Project Summary: This application is being submitted in response to the Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) identified as NOT-CA-20-032. In 2014, the Duke Global Cancer program was created forming a partnership between Duke University and Bugando Medical Centre (BMC) in Mwanza Tanzania, with a goal of improving quality of pediatric cancer care through research and clinical capacity development. This program is supported by the Duke Cancer Institute CCSG P30 grant whose aims include the integration of community outreach and global cancer development. In this current supplement application, we further these aims both domestically and globally through the development of contextually and culturally adapted pediatric cancer awareness media and evaluation of implementation strategy selection for use in Tanzania. Each year, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) account for over 85% of the 400,000 newly diagnosed pediatric cancer cases, with a 60% survival disparity exists compared to high-income countries. A key-contributing factor to this disparity is low community awareness and misbeliefs about childhood cancer and its treatment resulting in presentation delays and subsequent treatment abandonment. Culturally tailored and contextually relevant awareness interventions are more likely than simple translated education media to increase cancer knowledge and cancer health-seeking behavior. Although Swahili is the most common African language with 82 million speakers globally, including 270,000 in the US, no contextually validated pediatric cancer education media exist for many use in Swahili speaking communities. The current proposal will develop adapted childhood cancer awareness media in Swahili through the examination of the inherent cultural values and beliefs that influence health care seeking behavior among Tanzanian communities and potential implementation strategies for future intervention implementation. In Aim 1 we propose to complete multi-site community based focus groups to identify beliefs about cancer and education preferences among Swahili speakers in Tanzania. Results will inform education content consensus and presentation preferences through an iterative Delphi process with an expert advisory group including representatives from each of the three pediatric cancer referral hospitals in Tanzania. In Aim 2 we will use a mixed method analysis to evaluate the acceptability and contextual relevance of validated education implementation strategies. Selected strategies will be pilot tested with a 2-week media community exposure to determine potential implementation barriers for future scale up and efficacy evaluation studies.

Key facts

NIH application ID
10164470
Project number
3P30CA014236-46S2
Recipient
DUKE UNIVERSITY
Principal Investigator
Michael B Kastan
Activity code
P30
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2020
Award amount
$199,940
Award type
3
Project period
1997-01-01 → 2024-12-31