#30MinutesThatMatter campaign seeks public’s input for national cancer strategy

TORONTO — Canadians are being asked to set aside half an hour of their day to have their say on how cancer care can be improved and delivered across the country with the launch of an online campaign called #30MinutesThatMatter. 

The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (CPAC) campaign is aimed at having the public share their experiences about cancer to directly shape how prevention, screening and care are delivered in this country over the next decade.

The priorities identified by respondents in the online “Choicebook” will help form the basis for an updated version of the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control, the national plan to tackle all aspects of cancer care that was initiated 12 years ago.

“So this particular part of it — the Choicebook — is to engage the general public in an online forum where people are able to log on and over the course of no more than 30 minutes go through a series of questions that is trying to elicit from them what sorts of priorities they have for the cancer system,” said Dr. Craig Earle, CPAC’s vice-president of cancer control. 

For example, respondents are asked if they had $100, where would they most like to see the money spent, said Earle, an oncologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. “What would be your priority? Would it be prevention of cancer or the latest new drug, for example?

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“This is an opportunity for anybody to come on and make their voices heard.”

CPAC is working with provincial cancer agencies, cancer organizations and charities, patients, caregivers, the private sector and Indigenous communities across Canada to identify and address the most pressing challenges faced by those affected by cancer.

Recommendations gleaned from #30MinutesThatMatter will be combined with those from consultations with these stakeholder groups and presented to the federal Health Minister to help shape Canada’s renewed cancer strategy, which is expected in late spring.

“There is a rigorous analytic plan to go through the reams of data to identify themes and to try to prioritize them,” Earle said.

“What were the most common themes that came up over and over again?” he said. “What are the things that we think are actually achievable … that we can really try to move cancer care forward and cancer control forward?”

Doreen Edward, a patient adviser for the campaign, said she’s excited to be part of the national dialogue to help set priorities for the country’s cancer strategy.

As a survivor — in 1994, she was treated for colon cancer, then for aggressive ovarian cancer in 2010 — Edward said it’s critical that those who have lived with malignancies and their families and friends choose to make their experiences known, so their recommendations and insights can help lead to change.

She said one of her major worries is the sustainability of the health-care system in dealing with what is predicted to be a tsunami of new cancer cases as the population ages. Experts say one in two Canadians is expected to develop some form of cancer at some point in their lifetime.

“How do we reduce those costs?” Edward said from Montreal, where she runs a charitable organization called VOBOC, which helps support adolescent and young adult cancer patients.   

“I don’t know how we get there, but certainly input on prevention … and reducing the cost is critical. Then how do we improve that patient experience for those who do get cancer?”

Edward is also concerned about a lack of equitable access to cancer care for some Canadians — a challenge that Earle also says needs to be addressed.

“We do have universal health care in Canada, but certainly not everyone in our country benefits from the excellent care we have to the same degree,” he said. “That includes First Nations, Inuit and Metis, low-income Canadians, immigrants, the LGBT community.

“There are lots of communities, I think, that need our special attention to make sure that they’re benefiting to the maximum extent possible from our health-care system.”

Earle hopes there will be a focus on improved access to care for such groups, as well as those in rural Canada, in the revamped national cancer strategy — a strategy he believes has already helped produce such gains as reduced incidence of some cancers and increased survival rates.   

People living with cancer, those caring for someone with cancer, and anyone who knows someone with cancer are encouraged to participate in #30MinutesThatMatter by visiting www.cancerstrategy.ca between now and mid-December.

Directly engaging the public through the online Choicebook “is to make sure we’re not just in a bubble of policy makers deciding what we think the most important things are,” Earle said, “but reaching out directly to Canadians to see what are the things that concern them and what are their priorities.”

— Follow @SherylUbelacker on Twitter.

Sheryl Ubelacker, The Canadian Press