American Indian Project
Reducing Cancer Disparities for American Indians in the Rural Intermountain West
In 2006, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services funded six demonstration projects to evaluate the benefits of patient navigation for reducing cancer disparities among racial and ethnic minorities throughout the United States. Researchers from the Public Health Program and the Office of Global Health partnered with the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) in Salt Lake City, UT and the Sletten Cancer Center (SCC) in Great Falls, MT and received $3.9 million to study the effectiveness of patient navigation among American Indian communities throughout Utah and Montana.
The issue of cancer among American Indians lies within the area of cancer survival. In general, cancer survival is lower for all types of cancers among American Indians than their white counterparts. A number of factors contribute to poorer survival and it has been demonstrated among other populations that patient navigation successfully increases cancer survival. Specifically, in this study, a patient navigator is a community member whose role is to encourage and support their community peers to obtain appropriate cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment and assist them in overcoming barriers that inhibit obtaining this care. Our patient navigation project specifically focuses on colon, breast, cervical, prostate and lung cancer.
This project is a community trial, with a target of 1900 total enrollees and our end date is October 2010. As of January 2008, we approximately have 600 enrollees. This project is the first of what is planned to be many public health projects aimed at better understanding the nature of existing health disparities faced by American Indians and developing interventions that will reduce this gap.
