Current Size: 100%
Challenges in cancer survivorship - costs, inequalities and post-treatment follow-up (ICE Project)

Due to population ageing and trends in risk factors, the number of people diagnosed with cancer is growing. Survival for many cancers has improved over the last 20 to 30 years. Together these trends mean that an increasing number of people are living in Ireland with or beyond cancer. As cancer treatments improve, people with cancer are able to complete primary treatment and resume their everyday activities – transitioning from ‘patient’ to ‘survivor’. However, many survivors experience ongoing physical, cognitive and emotional issues and have continuing needs for medical and non-medical support and care.
This research programme aims to investigate three emerging areas which present particular challenges to the health services and society in relation to cancer survivorship:
- Acceptability, preferences and costs of alternative models of follow-up care for survivors of colorectal and prostate cancer
- Workforce participation and productivity losses in cancer survivors
- Inequalities in clinical and patient-reported outcomes between rural and urban cancer survivors
The programme is being undertaken by three HRB Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement (ICE) Award research fellows specialising in different methodologies – epidemiology, health economics and health services research/psycho-oncology. They will use a range of research methods to address the study aims, including literature reviews, surveys, qualitative interviews with patients and care providers, and health economic modelling.
This programme addresses a number of key challenges to the health care system in providing appropriate and adequate care to cancer survivors. It will:
- provide information about the best way to structure follow-up services for those who have completed their cancer treatment;
- Inform decision-makers about the most cost efficient way to provide these follow up services;
- Quantify the lost productivity following cancer and its treatments;
- Identify differences in the survivorship needs of individuals and services provided in rural and urban communities.
- Cancer deaths will cost Ireland €73 billion over the next 20 years
- Registry health economist wins best poster presentation award at recent conference
- Dr Alison Pearce, health economist at the Registry, wins prestigious conference award
- Registry research on the costs of cancer to be presented at an international conference in India
- Is prostate cancer follow-up by GPs more efficient than hospital based care?
- Our researchers showcase their work at the 11th iHEA World Congress in Milan
- Research into costs of cancer follow-up wins conference award
- The cost to society for time off work after head and neck cancer
- Collaborators at NUIG seek a post-doctoral research fellow
- Distance from hospital influences quality of life in colorectal cancer survivors
- Returning to work after head and neck cancer
- Quality of life in urban and rural settings
- Photos of ICE Awards Conference 2014
- National Cancer Registry to co-host ICE Awards Conference 2014
- Productivity losses due to premature mortality from cancer in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS): A population-based comparison
- Urban-rural differences in cancer-directed surgery and survival of patients with non-small cell lung cancer
- Projecting productivity losses for cancer-related mortality 2011 – 2030
- Comparing the costs of three prostate cancer follow-up strategies: a cost minimisation analysis
- Productivity losses associated with head and neck cancer using the Human Capital and Friction Cost approaches
- Distance from treating hospital and colorectal cancer survivors’ quality of life: a gendered analysis
- Long-term workforce participation patterns following head and neck cancer
- Quality of life in urban and rural settings: A study of head and neck cancer survivors
- Pre-testing with cognitive interviews highlights unanticipated decision making in a DCE
- Cancer And Premature Mortality In Ireland: An Employer’s Perspective Following The Friction Cost Approach
- The burden of cancer in emerging economies: Productivity loss as an alternative perspective
- Productivity losses for cancer-related mortality in Ireland: Projecting from 2011 to 2030
- Cancer-related productivity losses in emerging economies