Grant from the American Cancer Society is one of four awarded nationwide

May 1, 2007

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — UC Davis researchers have received a two-year, $144,000 grant from the American Cancer Society's new Palliative Care Initiative to develop and test a Spanish-language educational program for Latino cancer patients and their caregivers. The program will be designed to help monolingual, Spanish-speaking patients improve their coping skills and quality of life.

“In any chronic illness, stress increases,” said Fred Meyers, professor and chair of internal medicine at UC Davis and principal investigator for the new grant. “If we can improve people's coping strategies and problem-solving skills, we can enhance their quality of life.”

Meyers and his co-investigators plan to enroll 60 monolingual Spanish-speaking cancer patients from throughout the Central Valley in the study. Palliative care educators will evaluate the patients' health literacy, the meaning their illness has for them, their immigration experiences, religion, social stressors and social support networks. Educators will then provide the study participants, in their native language, with culturally tailored coaching in a problem-solving approach known as the “COPE” model.

COPE is an acronym for creativity, optimism, planning and expert information. The approach teaches people to clearly define a problem, gather expert information about it, brainstorm a range of solutions, devise a plan, anticipate potential obstacles, adjust the plan accordingly, implement the revised plan and evaluate the results. The approach also focuses on improving communication among patients, their families and health-care providers.

Meyers has studied the intervention in nearly 500 English-speaking cancer patients at UC Davis, the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif., Johns Hopkins and the University of San Diego. He has shown that the COPE model helps terminally ill cancer patients reduce feelings of psychological distress, better control symptoms and better prepare for death. Even as their disease worsens, these patients report an improved quality of life.

“We want to be able to extend this kind of supportive care to populations that may not have access it to it now,” Meyers said. “We hope to be able to cut through perceptual barriers and lift veils of social and cultural misunderstanding, improve patients' ability to communicate with their physicians and other health-care providers, and alleviate stress experienced by both cancer patients and their families.”

The American Cancer Society received 44 applications for its first Palliative Care Initiative grants. Only four of the applications, including the UC Davis proposal, were funded. The other awards are to Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Columbia University and Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Collaborating with Meyers on the new grant are Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, professor of clinical internal medicine and director of the UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities, Joan Blais, program administrator, Elizabeth Miller, a medical anthropologist, and David Ramirez, a fellow in the Division of Hematology and Oncology.

Meyers, founding director of the West Coast Center for Palliative Care Education and Research, was an early pioneer of the hospice movement in the United States. He is known for bringing hospice care to dying inmates in prisons and to patients in remote rural communities via telemedicine He has worked to advance a model of care, “simultaneous care,” that makes it possible for cancer patients undergoing investigational therapy to also receive palliative care.

In recognition of these contributions, Meyers was recently named a fellow of the American College of Physicians. He is also a recipient of the 2003 Circle of Life Award, bestowed by the American Hospital Association, American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, the American Medical Association and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The awards go to individuals and institutions making important contributions to improving end-of-life care in this country.

UC Davis Cancer Center, a program of the University of California, Davis, is the nation's 61st National Cancer Institute center, serving a region of more than 6 million people in inland Northern California.