Graduate student research - Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1807/90373

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    Community Report: Understanding How the Lives and Experiences of South Asian Women Impact Participation in Cervical Screening
    (2024) Devotta, Kimberly; O'Campo, Patricia; Bender, Jacqueline; Lofters, Aisha
    This is a community report that summarize the main activities and outcomes of a Concept Mapping study that engaged South Asian service users and service providers in Ontario, to understand how the lives and experiences of South Asian women in Ontario impact their decisions to get screened for cervical cancer. Using this method of Concept Mapping, we identified and prioritized aspects in people's lives that could impact participation in cervical screening. Concept Mapping is a semi-qualitative method that moves beyond identifying themes, to also include participants in the interpretation of interrelationships amongst the themes, and discussion of the findings. Participants brainstormed a total of 210 statements and after idea synthesis, 45 unique and distinct statements were identified. Through sorting and map interpretation, participants identified and labelled six clusters amongst the statements: 1) Personal beliefs and misconceptions around cervical cancer; 2) Education and knowledge issues around cervical cancer; 3) Cultural beliefs and influences specific to sexual health; 4) Barriers to prioritizing uptake of cervical screening; 5) System/ infrastructure gaps or inadequacies; and 6) Lack of comfort and supportive relationships in healthcare. In the end we identified multiple points of intervention that go beyond the individual, to include community and policy. To address underscreening we need to design multi-level interventions that address the identified ideas and the interrelationships among them. This report summarizes the step-by-step series of Concept Mapping activities, the results that came out of it, and key recommendations for improving rates of cervical screening in Ontario.
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    Supplemental Data for "Guideline adherence for initial treatment of differentiated thyroid cancer in Canada and the United States: a systematic review"
    (2018-09-01) Norwood, Todd A.; Zuk, Aleksandra M.; Lipscombe, Lorraine L.; Rosella, Laura C.
    Context: In 1996, the American Thyroid Association (ATA) released the first practice guidelines that included initial treatment for differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC), with updates in 2006 and 2009 (and 2015, published the same year as the review’s search). Since controversy exists for the initial treatment of DTC, we synthesized evidence to understand ATA guideline adherence for its initial treatment among adult patients in the United States and Canada. Evidence Acquisition: A peer reviewed search strategy for medical databases (e.g. Medline, Embase, etc.) and grey literature up to December 2016. Risk of bias domains for the included studies were assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and its modified version. Evidence Synthesis: The review included 15 studies. Here, findings extracted from single studies included in the review are described for completion thyroidectomy, radioiodine dose and need to refer a patient. Each reported guideline concordance of approximately 70%. Conclusions: More studies are required to synthesize the evidence for these treatments or, perhaps, a systematic review specifically designed to identify studies that examined these treatments.