The University of Alabama at Birmingham has received a five year, $2.6 million grant from the National Cancer Institute "to determine the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving quality of life for women recovering from breast cancer in rural areas," according to a news release from the university. The study, which will include surveys and interviews, is designed to prevent survivors from falling through the cracks in rural areas "because these women are particularly vulnerable to being lost in translation."
Karen Meneses, Ph.D., a U.A.B. School of Nursing professor, will direct the study. "We found in previous interventional studies that for women who live in a rural area it takes at least an hour or hour and a half to travel to a regional cancer center," she said. "They also may have very few support groups because they have few cancer societies or cancer centers to support them in their immediate area. It is important for us to know how to help these women because no matter how much we extend peoples lives through our medical breakthroughs, we must work daily to help them maintain one's quality of live, which meas women being able to enjoy their lives beyond diagnosis and how they change lives in different ways and learn from that."
Click here to read the entire news release, which includes details of the study's design and a video of Meneses discussing the project.
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