Reaching the Unreached seeks to better understand how patients and caregivers access information about lung cancer. It also aims to identify barriers to getting timely information at different points of a patient’s lung cancer journey, with the goal of developing solutions to ensure timely access to information.
It is easy to assume that lung cancer patients have access to the latest information—specifically, information that is customized to their type, their stage, and where they are in their treatment. Patients, in fact, receive very limited information when they are diagnosed with lung cancer and throughout their lung cancer journey.
Without help in finding credible information, patients and their families can be left frightened, overwhelmed, and confused when navigating their lung cancer diagnosis. Until it is understood why patients are not receiving information, the appropriate materials will not reach them. In addition, patient information needs may vary based on age, geographic location (ease of access to community resources), socioeconomic status, and level of health literacy.
The goals of Reaching the Unreached are:
- To gain understanding of how patients and caregivers who are reached—those who are engaged with the lung cancer community and have relatively easy access to information—get their information about lung cancer and how they would prefer to get it
- To determine what they perceive to be barriers to getting information as well as what information they do not feel they are getting
- To understand the physician perspective on barriers to relaying information and solutions to these barriers
The ultimate aim is to develop interventions to ensure that patients or their caregivers have access to timely information at different points of their lung cancer journey.
Results to Date
- Reaching the Unreached – Results of a patient-facing survey (2016)
- Reaching the Unreached: HCP Attitudes on and Usage of Patient Education Materials (white paper, May 2018)
- Are lung cancer patients receiving education materials? The healthcare-provider perspective on distribution gaps and possible solutions (Ferris et al, poster, 2018)