Recent Scientific Progress and Achievements:
Outreach, Clinical Care Delivery, and Outcomes
Progress in this theme has centered on increasing community outreach and quantitative assessments of current clinical practices and include:
- Establishment by Dr. Hiatt of a major Community Outreach and Translational Core that is fully integrated into the science of the Breast Cancer and the Environment Center that he
- Evaluation by Drs. Kaplan, Pasick, and Perez-Stable (Tobacco Control Program, Society, Diversity and Disparities Program) and colleagues of depressive symptoms among women of four ethnic groups who had an abnormal mammography result, controlling for the effect of demographic, psychosocial and medical factors on recent onset of depressive symptoms (Alderete et al. 15; 66-78, 2006).
Future Plans: We anticipate that many of the tools developed in Dr. Esserman's Center of Excellence on "A Blueprint for Regional Excellence in Breast Cancer Care" will be disseminated by the establishing commercial partnerships to make collection of patient reported outcomes routine. Working with payers and policymakers, we hope to make seminal contributions to our ability to assess and improve quality of care for women with breast cancer, and provide a model for all of cancer care, particularly in the area of tailoring symptom management and survivorship to specific tumor biology.
