About this Research Topic

Background

Cancer is a global burden and has been acknowledged as a dedicated sustainable development goal (SDG) by the WHO. Worldwide cancer care in all its aspects reaching from prevention and early detection up to palliative care is still characterized by extensive inequalities in accessibility, availability, acceptability, affordability, and quality of care. This results in the insufficient implementation of Universal Health Coverage in many countries and regions. Low and middle-income countries (LMICs) but also underserved regions and population groups in industrial countries achieve intensified focus since several years regarding knowledge exchange and support to overcome these inequalities. Research in global cancer care gained extended attention but still has limitations regarding comparability, methodology, and data quality. Therefore, the Research Topic “Universal Health Coverage and Global Health in Oncology” will focus on research approaches and results of cancer care implementation and its barriers that can be transferred to other countries.

Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) as well as industrial countries face intensive and frequently increasing problems in providing equal access to cancer care. Availability of required infrastructure and sufficiently qualified human resources is important, but not the sole issue. Process management, such as referral systems, first access points, national/regional prevention, and early detection concepts, among others, need to be investigated. Reliable and reproducible approaches for the related evaluations need to be implemented as part of cancer care management guidance and continuous process surveillance. International knowledge exchange and provision of implementation tools instead of solutions belong to the important challenges for cancer care development from the global health perspective. Recent advances have been achieved in the recognition and identification of vulnerable groups for specific aspects of cancer care as well as comparability and standardization of research methodology.

This Research Topic is interested in original research papers, scoping reviews, and critical methodological standards.

Manuscripts need to focus on the implementation of cancer care, its barriers, and factors that influence accessibility, availability, acceptability, affordability, and quality of cancer care. Specific themes include:

- Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)

- vulnerable groups

- underserved population groups

- comparability of cancer care evaluation

- roll-out concepts of cancer care

- implementation barriers

- inequalities in cancer care

- morbidity compression in cancer

- role of health care workers in cancer care



Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) will not be accepted in any of the sections of Frontiers in Oncology.

Keywords: low and middle income countries, vulnerable groups, universal health coverage, global health, inequalities, accessibility, availability, acceptability, affordability

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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