Dr. Kopciuk
Cancer rates in First Nations (FN) people are higher than the general Canadian population for many kinds of cancer, including those that could be prevented or caught early through cancer screening programs. When cancer is detected in FN people, it is often more advanced as well making it more difficult to treat. Our team will comprehensively evaluate cancer screening participation, follow-up and outcomes for FN people by linking several health data sources in Alberta with a FN registry. We want to thoroughly measure the various stages of the breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening programs’ pathways to identify if there are differences in these stages between FN and non-FN populations that might explain these cancer findings. Our project team is being led by experts in Indigenous health, cancer screening and cancer prevention research. The results that we find in our study will improve cancer screening programs where it is needed most through our close partnership with our FN team members and their organizations.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Karen Kopciuk
Co-Principal Investigator: Dr. Huiming Yang
Knowledge Users: Ms. Bonnie Healy, Ms. Lea Bill
Co-Investigators: Dr. Gregg Nelson, Dr. Winson Cheung, Ms. Melissa Shea-Budgell
Collaborators: Dr. Angeline Letendre, Ms. Bonnie Chiang, Ms. Amy Colquhoun, Ms. Rita Henderson, Mr. James Newsome
Funder: Canadian Institutes of Health Research
