Evidence-Based Interventions for Reducing Breast Cancer Disparities: What Works and Where the Gaps Are?

Abstract

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has established an online repository of evidence-based cancer control programs (EBCCP) and increasingly calls for the usage of these EBCCPs to reduce the cancer burden. To inventory existing EBCCPs and identify remaining gaps, we summarized NCI’s EBCCPs relevant to reducing breast cancer risk with an eye towards interventions that address multiple levels of influence in populations facing breast cancer disparities. For each program, the NCI EBCCP repository provides the following expert panel determined summary metrics: (a) program ratings (1–5 scale, 5 best) of research integrity, intervention impact, and dissemination capability, and (b) RE-AIM framework assessment (0–100%) of program reach, effectiveness, adoption, and implementation. We quantified the number of EBCCPs that met the quality criteria of receiving a score of ≥3 for research integrity, intervention impact, and dissemination capability, and receiving a score of ≥50% for available RE-AIM reach, effectiveness, adoption, and implementation. For breast cancer risk reduction, we assessed the presence and quality of EBCCPs related to physical activity (PA), obesity, alcohol, tobacco control in early life, breastfeeding, and environmental chemical exposures. Our review revealed several major gaps in EBCCPs for reducing the breast cancer burden: (1) there are no EBCCPs for key breast cancer risk factors including alcohol, breastfeeding, and environmental chemical exposures; (2) among the EBCPPs that exist for PA, obesity, and tobacco control in early life, only a small fraction (24%, 17% and 31%, respectively) met all the quality criteria (≥3 EBCCP scores and ≥50% RE-AIM scores) and; (3) of those that met the quality criteria, only two PA interventions, one obesity, and no tobacco control interventions addressed multiple levels of influence and were developed in populations facing breast cancer disparities. Thus, developing, evaluating, and disseminating interventions to address important risk factors and reduce breast cancer disparities are needed.

Acceptability and Usability of the Family Gene Toolkit for Swiss and Korean Families Harboring BRCA1/BRAC2 Pathogenic Variants: A Web-Based Platform for Cascade Genetic Testing

“…This communication strategy has significant limitations in ensuring contact with at-risk relatives and the transmission of accurate information [ 9 , 10 ], leaving approximately 50% of them unaware of their potential cancer risk [ 11 ]. This created the challenge of reaching relatives who are not in contact with the healthcare system through family networks [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Genetic specialists responded by writing family letters that can be distributed by the tested individual or sent directly to at-risk relatives.…”

Performance Analysis of a new Filter and Wrapper Sequence for the Survivability Prediction of Breast Cancer Patients

“…Breast cancer is one of the most serious medical reasons associated with death of women on earth. The disease is caused by many factors such as age, obesity, alcoholism, lack of physical activity, menopausal status and family history of breast cancer [1]. Data Mining and Machine Learning (ML) techniques have been used to develop various breast cancer prediction models [2].…”