Eating for Life: Dietary Behaviors Among Long Term Cancer Survivors

描述（由申请人提供）：为美国1100多万癌症幸存者设计有效的健康促进计划现在至关重要。只有向幸存者提供必要的工具，在其整个生命过程中最大限度地提高健康和生活质量，才能充分发挥迄今在癌症预防和控制方面取得的重大成果的潜力。虽然人们对行为在癌症发病率中的作用已经了解得很多，但我们对行为对幸存者关键健康结果的影响的理解还远远不够。改变饮食是促进癌症幸存者健康的一个有希望的途径，但尚未得到充分探索。为了充分了解饮食调整是否能有意义地改善幸存者的健康，我们必须制定干预方案，以详细了解幸存者当前的饮食习惯，以及癌症如何塑造个人的自我概念和行为改变的准备。从拟议的研究中产生的数据将为长期癌症幸存者未来的饮食干预所处的社会、个人和临床环境提供见解。我们提出了一种创新的混合方法来检查不再接受积极治疗的癌症幸存者的饮食。我们的研究方法整合了幸存者正在进行的生命历程和不断发展的临床护理模式的整体背景。这项研究将分两个先后和互补的阶段进行。第一阶段将包括对30名照顾癌症幸存者的医疗保健提供者的关键信息访谈，第二阶段将整合关于癌症治疗、历史和幸存者身份的详细定性访谈数据，以及来自60名非霍奇金淋巴瘤、乳腺癌和前列腺癌长期幸存者样本的当前饮食数据。本探索性研究的最终目的是产生关于有效和可持续的饮食干预的假设，这些干预既反映了个体与癌症状态的关系，也反映了生存期护理模式的变化。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Designing effective health promotion initiatives for the growing population of more than 11 million U.S. cancer survivors is now of critical importance. The full potential of the significant gains made thus far in cancer prevention and control will only be fulfilled when survivors are provided with the necessary tools to maximize health and quality of life throughout their entire life course. While much is known about the role of behavior in cancer incidence, our understanding of the effects of behavior on key health outcomes for survivors is not nearly as well understood. Changes in diet are one promising, but as yet not fully explored avenue for health promotion among cancer survivors. To fully understand whether dietary modification can meaningfully improve survivor health, we must develop intervention protocols that build upon detailed understanding of survivors' current eating practices and how cancer shapes an individual's self concept and readiness for behavior change. The data produced from the proposed research will provide insight into the social, personal and clinical contexts within which future dietary interventions for long term cancer survivors would be situated. We propose an innovative mixed-methods approach to examining diet among cancer survivors who are no longer undergoing active treatment. Our research methods integrate the holistic context of survivors' ongoing life course and evolving models of clinical care. The research will occur in two sequential and complementary phases. Phase 1 will consist of key informant interviews with 30 health care providers who care for cancer survivors, and phase 2 will integrate detailed qualitative interview data around cancer treatment and history and survivorship identity with current dietary data from a sample of 60 long term survivors of non Hodgkin lymphoma, breast and prostate cancer. The ultimate objective of this exploratory study is to generate hypotheses pertaining to effective and sustainable dietary interventions that reflect both individuals' relationship with their cancer status and the changing model of survivorship care.