Navigating a Path to Equity in Cancer Care: The Role of Patient Navigation
Niharika Dixit, Hope S. Rugo, Nancy J. Burke
Abstract
Notable barriers exist in the delivery of equitable care for all patients with cancers. Social determinants of health at distal, intermediate, and proximal levels impact cancer care. Patient navigation is a patient-centered intervention that functions across these overlapping determinants to increase access to cancer services throughout the cancer care continuum. There is a need to standardize patient navigation training while remaining responsive to local contexts of care and a need to implement patient navigation programs with a health equity lens to address cancer care inequities.
Topics & Concepts
Equity (law)Intervention (counseling)Health equityContinuum of careHealth careMedicineCancerNursingFamily medicineBusinessPolitical scienceEconomic growthPublic healthEconomicsInternal medicineLawGlobal Cancer Incidence and ScreeningPalliative Care and End-of-Life IssuesCancer survivorship and care