Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes Network

​​Beyond cancer/Más allá del cancer: Film screening and Q&A​
2024-02-08 17:30 - 19:00 (Europe/London) | Online
To mark World Cancer Day 2024, the Centre for Global Chronic Conditions, Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes Network (ICON), and the Cancer Interest Group are co-hosting a film screening of ‘Beyond cancer/Más allá del cancer’ (2022, 41 minutes, Spanish with English subtitles).
The short but powerful film shares the experiences of a community-based participatory study with three communities in the Entre Ríos region of Argentina, where researchers and public health practitioners came together with community members to conduct a community-based participatory study to look at the pathways of disparities in the first phases of cancer continuum.
This film reflects some of this process and provides a revealing portrait of the challenges and realities experienced by community members, and how involving them in the research process, building trust and developing long-term relationships is the first step towards a structural approach to address equity in healthcare.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with lead researcher, Dr Natalia Luxardo, film director, Prof. Marcel Kolvenbach, and members of the study team.
Speakers
Dr Natalia Luxardo, CONICET & University of Buenos Aires
Dr Natalia Luxardo works in Research at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), and Professor of Methodology in the Social Sciences Faculty at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Professor Marcel Kolvenbac, Academy of Media Arts (KHM)
Professor Marcel Kolvenba is Professor of Documentary Film, Academy of Media Arts (KHM), Cologne, Germany.
Chair
Professor Bernard Rachet
Associate Professor Eleanor Hutchinson

Cancer and me - The power of our stories
2022-07-12 16:00 - 18:00 | Online
Living with or caring for someone with cancer can sometimes feel overwhelming, and much of what we are going through can be hidden from view. But connecting with others can help. Sharing experiences and telling our stories can help us find meaning and purpose, they can help us understand others and ourselves.
But how and where do we share our stories, how do we find the words to describe the unexplainable? We hope to create a safe and supportive space where we can share stories and explore how sharing our experiences and listening to others can be helpful.
This virtual session will last about 2 hours with most of the time spent in a small group of up to 6 participants for sharing and listening. At the start we will think about words and give you time to reflect on what you would like to share. We hope through these warm-up activities you will feel able to participate, but you do not need to come with a story prepared, and you may share as much or as little of your experiences as you wish.
We will also find some time to share with you about the research we do and talk about what connects us with cancer through our work and our own stories. What we all share on the day will remain private, and we will ask all participants to respect this, but there will also be an opportunity at the end to hear how your experiences and stories can help support cancer research and how you can be involved further with this if you wish.
To express your interest in attending and to receive more information please fill out this short registration form
If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at ICON@lshtm.ac.uk

cancer_and_me_animation MP4

Acknowledgements: This event has been put together with patient representatives, who have contributed to all aspects of the formation and development of the activity. We extend our gratitude to them for their involvement and support.

Statistical methods and recent advances in statistical methods for excess risk analysis
2022-07-04 - 2022-07-08 | Université de Corse Pascal Paoli (Corte), Corte, 75X3+VG Corte, France, France
Corsican Summer School on Modern Methods in Biostatistics and Epidemiology
ICON members are delighted to once again be involved in the Corsican Summer School on Modern Methods in Biostatistics and Epidemiology: Statistical methods and recent advances in statistical methods for excess risk analysis.
This is the third course offered as part of the HEAR+STAT series of courses organised by the Challenges in the Estimation of Net SURvival (CENSUR) working survival Group.
Course Leaflet
Details and registration

Assessing factors explaining socio-economic inequalities in survival from colon cancer: what did we learn?
2022-05-18 12:45 - 13:45
Dr Nina Afshar will open her seminar with a discussion about differences in cancer survival by area-level socio-economic disadvantage in Victoria, Australia and whether these inequalities vary by different factors such as year of diagnosis, age at diagnosis, time since diagnosis and sex. She will then present a complex project she has recently undertaken on colon cancer, in which she applied interventional causal mediation analysis to linked population-based health data in order to measure the role of stage at diagnosis, comorbidities, and treatment (surgery and intravenous chemotherapy) on survival from colon cancer.
The fourth in the Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes Network (ICON) series of seminars on Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes, this seminar is offered jointly with the LSHTM Centre for Global Chronic Conditions.
Speaker
Dr Nina Afshar is the inaugural Graham Giles Research Fellow at Cancer Council Victoria and honorary fellow at Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is a cancer epidemiologist currently focussing on bladder cancer research using the resources of the international National Cancer Institute Cohort Consortium. She completed her master’s degree and PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Melbourne and Cancer Council Victoria. Her doctoral research focused on trends and inequalities in cancer survival in Victoria, Australia using cancer registry data, with an emphasis on identifying factors explaining socio-economic inequalities in colon cancer survival, applying a novel method of causal mediation analysis to linked population-based health data. Before joining Cancer Council in mid-2021, Dr Afshar worked at the University of Melbourne Cancer Health Services Research unit as a Research Fellow, and as an epidemiologist at the Department of Health and Human Services in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zoom link

Does your socioeconomic status affect breast cancer treatment and outcomes?
2022-04-08 12:45 - 14:00
In this seminar, Marissa will present her research on the associations between socioeconomic status, recurrence and excess mortality in young breast cancer patients in the Netherlands.

Sabine will present research on the associations between socioeconomic status and the choice of surgery in breast cancer patients in the Netherlands.
Relevant to anyone interested in health inequalities and cancer outcomes, in particular, this webinar will include time for participant questions and give attendees an understanding of the associations between socioeconomic status and cancer outcomes.
The third in the Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes Network (ICON) series of seminars on Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes, this seminar is offered jointly with the LSHTM Centre for Global Chronic Conditions.
Speakers
Dr Marissa van Maaren, Clinical Epidemiologist at the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organisation and teacher at the University of Twente, The Netherlands
Professor Sabine Siesling, Clinical Epidemiologist at the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organisation and Professor of Outcomes Research and Personalised Cancer Care at the University of Twente, the Netherlands

The relation between social factors and health outcomes through social-to-biological processes: Considerations for cancer epidemiology
2022-03-10 00:45 - 13:45
In this seminar, Michelle Kelly-Irving will outline the embodiment dynamic conceptual framework used to examine how health inequalities are partly constructed through social-to-biological processes. She will provide empirical examples of the social gradient in biological health and how this potentially relates to inequalities in cancer incidence and progression.
Relevant to anyone interested in health inequalities and cancer outcomes in particular, this webinar will include time for participant questions and give attendees to a broader understanding of the construction of health inequalities over the life course through social-to-biological processes.
The second in the Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes Network (ICON) series of seminars on Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes, this seminar is offered jointly with the LSHTM Centre for Global Chronic Conditions.
Speakers
Michelle Kelly-Irving, Social epidemiologist, Director of the Equity research team (Cerpop-UMR1295 Inserm-Université Toulouse III)

Persistent inequalities in cancer care and cancer outcomes: What are we doing wrong?
2022-02-04 12:45 - 13:45
To mark World Cancer Day, join Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes Network (ICON), Centre for Global Chronic Conditions and Cancer Interest Group for the first seminar in a series on Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes.
Universal health coverage (UHC) systems, such as the NHS, aim to provide optimal care to all according to their needs. Therefore, all things being equal, cancer patients should receive the same optimal care and experience similar outcomes. However, in the UK and other countries with UHC systems, inequalities in cancer outcomes along the cancer patient pathway are consistently observed across various sociodemographic groups of the population.
Reacting to such alarming observations, plans and initiatives have been implemented in order to reduce these inequalities, but very little success has been achieved. At the same time, understanding the mechanisms underlying these inequalities and investigating solutions to reduce them is the growing focus in many research fields, reflecting the multidimensionality of this topic.
Acknowledging this complexity, this series of seminars will bring together speakers from a wide range of backgrounds to present their views on these inequalities and to build a bridge between experts, policymakers and stakeholders.
In this first seminar of the series, Professor Bernard Rachet will provide an overview of the current cancer inequalities landscape and present some of the suggested mechanisms which underlay policy initiatives.
Beyond looking at individual factors associated with cancer outcomes, our research on inequalities recently shifted to the interplays between elements of the healthcare system and sociodemographic characteristics of the cancer patients. We want to know why more deprived patients have worse cancer outcomes and what can be done about it.
Speakers
Professor Bernard Rachet, Professor of Cancer Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
This session will be chaired by Dr Melanie Morris, Deputy Director of Centre for Global Chronic Conditions.
