Cancer treatment must be balanced with equal efforts to prevent and control its occurrence, researchers wrote in a report published Nov. 30 in Translational Behavioral Medicine.
The report is part of a special issue of the journal, titled “Cancer Prevention and Control for a New Decade,” curating 12 articles co-authored by experts in behavioral and preventive medicine exploring the field of cancer preventive sciences.
"What the field needs right now, more than ever, is to continue its strong leadership and advocacy efforts to shape the agenda for U.S. cancer research and cancer policy going forward," researchers wrote.
Building on the articles within the special issue, researchers offered six suggestions for the field of behavioral medicine:
1. Focus on real-world implementation through a combination of new and innovative designs, a focus on research evidence ready for implementation, and better measurement of multilevel factors influencing health outcomes.
2. Focus on population health through attention to novel outcomes, such as biobehavioral interactions, environmental factors and social determinants of health.
3. Emphasize an equitable application of resources and interventions to all subpopulations and perform sustainable evaluation of programs to ensure long-term improvements.
4. Modernize research targets to include novel technologies and applications.
5. Form new, multilevel partnerships, including provider/patient to organizational partnerships, as applicable.
6. Incentivize above efforts through supporting policies, legislation and funding on federal and state levels.