NCI Expands Office of Cancer Survivorship Web Site

National Cancer Institute
Tuesday, 14 December 1999

Underscoring its commitment to the growing population of cancer survivors, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) today unveiled the Office of Cancer Survivorship's (OCS) newly designed, easy-to-navigate Web site.

As more people than ever survive cancer and live longer, NCI is stepping up efforts to study and support this group. An estimated 8.4 million are living with a history of cancer in 1999. The Web site describes the role, mission, and history of the OCS, and provides an overview of current research, funding and training opportunities, and new research directions.

Researchers, clinicians and survivors, and their families will be able to communicate directly with the staff of the office through the Internet. Consumers will also learn how to become involved in the research direction and oversight process. In addition, the user-friendly site has a resource list of programs for survivors that will expand over the next year, and includes links to related articles, data, and press releases.

"This site is central to the developing infrastructure of databases and researcher networks needed to support survivorship studies," said OCS Director Julia Rowland, Ph.D. The site can be reached at NCI's Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences' homepage: http://dccps.nci.nih.gov by clicking on the "Survivorship Research" button.

Visitors will be able to link to key pediatric incidence and survival data from NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (SEER) and to recent findings about adult survivors from the National Center for Health Statistics' 1992 National Health Interview Survey.

Acknowledging the need for more information on the demographics of cancer survivors, their current health, and their unique needs, NCI established the OCS in 1996 to improve the quality of life for all survivors as part of the institute's broader mission to reduce the burden of cancer on patients and society. In 1999, the OCS's budget and operating capacity were tripled. The office supports research on survivors, educates clinicians, health care providers, and survivors about the needs of cancer survivors; and works closely with the cancer advocacy community.

Rowland, who had been on the faculty of Georgetown University, became director of OCS in September 1999. Founding director of the office, Anna Meadows, M.D., who served part-time since the establishment of the office in June 1996, has returned to academia at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Rowland received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University Teachers College and served a post doctoral fellowship in the psychiatry service, Department of Neurology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center from 1984-86. She later joined Memorial's attending staff and helped establish, and became the first director of, their post-treatment research program, a ground-breaking center for providing non-medical services to cancer survivors and their families. Most recently, she served as an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Georgetown University School of Medicine, where she established the Psychooncology Program. She has conducted extensive research on the psychological, social, and sexual effects of breast cancer on survivors, and was co-editor of the first textbook of psycho-oncology, with Jimmie Holland, M.D., entitled Handbook of Psychooncology.

For more information, or to contact National Cancer Institute, see their website at: www.cancer.gov