People in deprived communities are more likely to have a late cancer diagnosis, with around 50% of these individuals likely to receive a diagnosis in an emergency department setting. In this blog post, Research Ambassador Pravina Saravanamuttu reflects on her experiences leading a group secondary research project in partnership between Anglia Ruskin University and Princess Alexandra Hospital; they developed a series of recommendations aimed at improving cancer information accessibility for deprived communities, so these individuals effectively receive the knowledge they need to advocate for early support from healthcare systems.
As a recent healthcare graduate, improving accessibility to health information, services and treatments is an issue I feel strongly about. Health inequalities are a critical issue, both in the UK and beyond. Those in deprived areas face numerous barriers that make accessing adequate healthcare difficult. These can be:
- Financial: people may lack money for travelling to health appointments, or may have to work overtime to afford living costs
- Cultural: some minority groups have community-related stereotypes standing in the way of them seeking support
- Social: the inverse care rule means that many deprived areas are insufficiently served by health providers.
All the above factors contribute to the lack of health literacy in deprived communities; this means people are less likely to be aware of common symptoms for critical health conditions, including cancer. A person’s health literacy regarding cancer can be increased by addressing the barriers they face towards accessing information.
It is virtually impossible to improve health engagement in deprived areas within a short space of time, but an evidence-based strategy informed by UK and global research could gradually reduce regional acute and emergency care burdens. Myself and my team took this consideration into account when preparing for the research challenge.
Our partner organisation was Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, and we specifically looked into how we can make cancer information more accessible to people from deprived groups. Despite the time constraints we had, I am proud of the library of resources our team constructed for the hospital’s patient information team. These are the ideas we focused on seeking evidence for:
- Engaging men in deprived communities to seek symptom support.
- Improving cancer information resources through language adaptation, translation, and visual communication for varying literacy levels within these communities.
- Community outreach: this involves bringing information directly to at-risk populations. Ideal settings that could facilitate this work include schools, and there has been some recently-published evidence displaying cancer awareness trends amongst Irish adolescents. Individuals in this study expressed facing multiple barriers to accessing treatment (including worry, time availability and difficulties communicating with medical professionals) (Lawrence et al., 2025). However, there were also some more crucial findings that highlighted a lack of awareness surrounding certain cancer risk factors (Lawrence et al., 2025):
- Aside from smoking and alcohol consumption, children were less knowledgeable of the role fatty foods and viruses had as cancer risk factors.
- Over 50% of the study group were unfamiliar with the connection between Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and cancer development.
- Children lacked knowledge of fruit and vegetable consumption in reducing cancer risk.
- Co-production of cancer resources with community members and those with lived experience: This approach aims to integrate the viewpoints of marginalised communities into the production of cancer information initiatives, to improve information accessibility and relevance.
Following our work, there may also be an opportunity for a research collaboration between the university’s academics and the hospital, and I am excited to see how these measures unfold. The idea that is currently being worked on is the organisation of a young people’s forum, with current students. This will serve as a powerful way to engage individuals from a variety of backgrounds that attend the university, sparking that further conversation with family and friends away from campus grounds.
This experience has definitely made me realise my capabilities in leading secondary research conduction within a tight timeframe, for a public health issue. I have learnt so much about different strategies used within the community to help incorporate lived experiences into healthcare improvements; these will definitely be useful for me if I potentially embark on further research work within my career.
Pravina Saravanamuttu,
Research Ambassador
About me:
I joined Healthwatch Essex as a Research Ambassador at the start of 2025. I qualified as a Physician Associate towards the end of last year, and currently work as a clinical professional in a digital healthcare company. However, I am also really interested in public health and addressing health inequalities.
References:
Jambor, Helena Klara, et al. “Communicating Cancer Treatment with Pictogram-Based Timeline Visualizations.” Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 16 Jan. 2025, academic.oup.com/jamia/article/32/3/480/7958420?login=false, https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocae319. Accessed 5 Mar. 2025.
Lawrence SM, Saab MM, FitzGerald S, Hegarty J (2025) Cancer awareness among adolescents in Irish schools: A cross-sectional study. PLoS ONE 20(3): e0319252. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0319252
Mills (2007). Beyond Boundaries: offering substance misuse services to new migrants in London [pdf]. Available at: https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2299/3422/903391.pdf?sequence=1 Accessed 14 Mar 2025.
National Cancer Institute (2025). “Communication in Cancer Care.” National Cancer Institute, Cancer.gov, Apr. 2018, www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/coping/adjusting-to-cancer/communication-hp-pdq. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025.
NHS England Inclusion Health, (2024). A National framework for NHS – action on inclusion health [online]. Available at: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/a-national-framework-for-nhs-action-on-inclusion-health/#policy-context [Accessed March 14 2025].
Schleimer, Lauren E, et al. “Developing and Evaluating Culturally and Literacy Appropriate Cancer Patient Education Materials for Haiti.” Journal of Global Oncology, vol. 2, no.3_suppl, 1 June 2016, pp. 55s56s, https://doi.org/10.1200/jgo.2016.004366. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025.