The PEP Project - Synergistic Community Based Action in Prevention, Early Detection and Palliative Care, to Impact the Cancer Burden in India
Open Access
- 1 July 2018
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Galenos Yayinevi
- Vol. 24 (3), 349-354
- https://doi.org/10.4103/IJPC.IJPC_32_18
Abstract
With unprecedented surge in the incidence and prevalence of cancer in India, it has become imperative to strengthen the workforce for all the domains of cancer care. A large proportion of the activity required for prevention as well as for palliation, lie outside of tertiary institutions, in the community. Palliative care ( PC) as a field is expanding exponentially across the country and the service providers often engage and work actively within the local community in their region. This article describes the scope for reducing the cancer burden in the community, through capacity building of community based PC healthcare functionaries in the domains of Prevention, and Early detection of common cancers along with Palliative care - the PEP domains. It suggests aligning and enhancing the workforce already active within the community for PC, for screening, and if feasible, for early detection of common cancers. The article describes possibilities of initiating PEP activities and offers a set of screening questionnaire that may be used when engaged with family/ community setting. The aim is to integrate the activities done, to detect the need for palliative care in a family / community, with that required to detect need for evaluation of most common cancers- oral, breast and cervix. The PEP concept may be adapted to different levels, based on the team presence in the communities, degree of engagement, and availability of trainers and healthcare personnel.Keywords
This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit:
- Civil Society-Driven Drug Policy Reform for Health and Human Welfare—IndiaJournal of Pain and Symptom Management, 2017
- Recommendations for screening and early detection of common cancers in IndiaThe Lancet Oncology, 2015
- Prospective Study of One Million Deaths in India: Rationale, Design, and Validation ResultsPLoS Medicine, 2005
- Improving cancer care in India: prospects and challenges.2004