Field Placement:  MATRIX Public Health Solutions
Location: New Haven, CT
Preceptor: Monika Doshi
Student Name: Maren Robinson
Year: 2008

I was hired as an intern at MATRIX Public Health Solutions, Inc., a woman-owned agency, located in New Haven, Connecticut, for the summer of 2008 (June 17 — September 18).  My preceptor, Monika Doshi, responsible for my hire, assisted me in delineating my priority objectives, which were focused on initial-phase tasks for The Connecticut Cancer Survivorship Project — MATRIX’s contracted work with the Connecticut Department of Public Health (CDPH) and Connecticut Cancer Partnership (CCP).  Due to the burgeoning cancer survivor community in Connecticut, the CDPH and CCP allocated funding for MATRIX to execute a statewide assessment of cancer survivor needs relevant to each phase along the NCI’s Cancer Control Continuum (prevention, early detection, treatment, survivorship and hospice/palliative care).  According to the Connecticut Tumor Registry database, as many as 20,000 Connecticut residents were diagnosed with cancer in 2007.

The initial needs assessment and implementation of needed services instituted by the CDPH and CCP occurred from 2003 to 2006 with no involvement from MATRIX.  The CDHP and CCP then allotted funding for 2008 to 2011 to carry out a second needs assessment and to evaluate whether the identified needs of cancer survivors were being met as a result of their initial efforts to improve care and services to cancer survivors during the initial 2003-06 phase.  This second needs assessment (in which MATRIX is involved) focuses on the needs of survivors during the survivorship phase of the continuum and on those of the medically underserved community.  Specific cross-sections of the Connecticut population, particularly under- and uninsured racial and ethnic minorities living in low socio-economic areas, experience greater barriers and inequities in access to cancer-related services.  A cancer survivor who encounters barriers in access to quality cancer care is likely to experience late stage diagnosis, less access to treatment and side-effect-management medications, longer healing periods, increased chances of primary cancer recurrence and/or the development of secondary cancers, poorer survival rates as well as an overall poorer quality of life. It is, thus, critical that cancer survivor needs be identified to alleviate the burden of cancer and its many life-altering consequences.

My objectives, as they pertained to this project and as a part of a broader effort to address the gaps and barriers to cancer-related care and services facing cancer survivors, encompassed the following: (1) conducting a comprehensive literature review of both published and programmatic cancer-related material, (2) synthesizing the compiled literature into a fifty-page document highlighting both needs and evidence-based and promising practices relevant to specific phases along the cancer control continuum (to be included in the CDPH’s November 2008 Quarterly Report), (3) assisting in the revision of a comprehensive cancer survivor survey to be implemented statewide, (4) attending key informant interviews, (5) organizing survey pilot sessions and piloting the cancer survivor survey to garner important feedback from  cancer survivors, and, lastly, (6) developing a comprehensive Connecticut Cancer Resource Inventory Guide (to be posted on the CDPH website).

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