Seventeen U.S. cancer centers are coming together to study the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic with regard to delaying cancer detection, care and prevention.
The centers will work with the National Cancer Institute, and the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham will serve as the coordinating site.
The consortium will conduct surveys via the phone or social media among healthy volunteers and cancer survivors nationwide about their health and well-being during the pandemic, including behavior related to COVID-19 prevention and behaviors linked to cancer, such as tobacco use.
The work also aims to examine whether differences in demographics affect cancer prevention, management and survivorship during the pandemic.
"By coming together, these cancer centers will be able to develop and implement cancer prevention and control strategies to combat the ill effects of the pandemic, particularly among medically underserved populations where the pandemic may have exacerbated their unmet health needs," said Isabel Scarinci, PhD, the O'Neal Cancer Center's senior adviser for globalization and cancer.
Centers joining the consortium include University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston; the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit; and Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City. For a full list of the participating cancer centers, click here.