# Improving adherence to posttreatment follow-up care for rural lung cancer survivors through a community-clinical survivorship care team model

> **NIH NIH K01** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $167,616

## Abstract

Project/Summary: Rural lung cancer survival rates have lagged behind the national average for decades. A key
contributor to recent survival disparities is fragmented survivorship care, leaving rural survivors without supports
to facilitate survivorship care and adherence to follow-up care. Rural survivors often receive their care from
specialists located in distal, urban centers, where travel, social, and financial burdens threaten adherence to
follow-up care. Further, urban healthcare professionals are unaware of rural resources and encumbered by
finding rural community resources needed to overcome barriers to care. Thus, a community-clinical survivorship
care team is a promising strategy to improve timely follow-up care and provide linkages to community resources.
A rural community health worker (CHW) that is knowledgeable about local resources and the socio-economic
barriers to survivorship care is a fitting community agent on a community-clinical team. The success of
community-clinical care teams to improve care coordination and health outcomes is well documented, but few
of these studies investigate rural survivorship care or the integration of a CHW in the team model. Also, a gap in
the literature exists regarding the implementation of a CHW-clinical survivorship care team model to improve
rural survivorship outcomes. To address this critical gap, the research examines the implementation of a CHW-
clinical survivorship care team to improve adherence to follow-up care for rural lung cancer survivors. The aims
of this project are to 1) assess perspectives on desired CHW roles and their processes for interacting with clinical
care team members in a community-clinical survivorship care team; 2) test the feasibility and initial acceptability
of CENTRAL, and 3) evaluate the implementation of CENTRAL to identify factors that influence its sustained
use in a multi-site effectiveness-implementation trial design R01. CENTRAL will be adapted from an existing
patient navigation research program, and interviews with key stakeholders to inform CHW roles and processes
for working with clinical care teams (Aim 1). Dr. Lewis-Thames will pilot CENTRAL (N=60) with rural lung cancer
survivors to assess its acceptability and feasibility (Aim 2). Aim 3 will provide insights on facilitators and barriers
of implementing CENTRAL via the EPIS (exploration, preparation, implementation, sustainment) implementation
framework through an analysis of implementation costs and interviews with CENTRAL participants, CHWs and
providers. This K01 involves a training plan consisting of coursework, seminars, experiential learning, and
mentorship by an established team of experts. The research is conducted at Northwestern University and
affiliated rural-serving Cancer Centers which offer superior facilities and resources to provide training in
intervention development and adaption, implementation science, cost-analysis, and rural survivorship care. The
outlined training plan will ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10283707
- **Project number:** 1K01CA262342-01
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Marquita W. Lewis
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $167,616
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-03 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10283707

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10283707, Improving adherence to posttreatment follow-up care for rural lung cancer survivors through a community-clinical survivorship care team model (1K01CA262342-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10283707. Licensed CC0.

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