MIAMI – A team of researchers from the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has been awarded a $4 million grant by the National Institutes of Health to study the effects of stress management in Black women (African American, African, Black Caribbean and Black Hispanic) who have finished breast cancer treatment.
Suzanne Lechner, Ph.D., research assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology, is principal investigator of the 5-year UM study.
The study is dubbed Project CARE, and according to Lechner, is designed to help women Cope, Adapt, Renew, and Empower one another after breast cancer treatment. Lechner hopes to uncover some of the social and psychological factors that affect survivorship among Black women. This is important because even though Black women tend to have a lower incidence rate of breast cancer, their mortality rate is higher than most other groups of women stricken with the disease.
The primary goal of the study is to determine whether a successful stress-management intervention can be effectively implemented in community settings, and to demonstrate that it is efficacious in facilitating positive adaptation to breast cancer among Black women with the disease.
Project CARE is dedicated to improving the health and well-being of Black women with breast cancer through the use of well developed group support methods, cancer education, and relaxation training methods.
Key aspects of the study are: Care (health and wellness education), Confidentiality (anonymity and non-disclosure of participant identity), and Compensation (up to $500 per participant). The eligibility criteria for study participants:
• Black women who are within a 6 month window of completing surgical, chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy treatment for breast cancer.
Any patients who have been prescribed hormone therapy such as Tamoxifen®, aromatase inhibitors or the antibody treatment Herceptin® are also eligible
• Must be over the age of 21
• Able to speak, read, and write English fluently
• Willing to give blood and saliva samples and participate in ten 90-minute group sessions, and
• Have no other life-limiting/threatening illnesses or previous diagnoses of cancer.
This program is tailored for women at the end of treatment, an often-neglected but stressful time for women. “As a patient, you feel like all that you were doing up [until the end of treatment] protected you, but once treatment is over then you’re left to your own devices,” says Rhonda M. Smith, a breast cancer survivor and community partner on the project. “Groups like Project CARE are an excellent way to enable Black women to take control of their own health and well-being for the long-term,” Smith said.
Erin Kobetz, Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology and public health, and Michael
Antoni, Ph.D., associate director of cancer prevention and control at Sylvester, are co-principal investigators on this study.
Another member of the team, Nicole Ennis Whitehead, Ph.D., manager of the Biopsychosocial Oncology Shared Resource at Sylvester, says the hope is that this project “raises awareness in the local community about the unique issues facing Black women with breast cancer.”
For several years, Miller School researchers have been examining stress management to better understand how group participation may affect women’s well-being. Doctors are interested specifically in how stress management groups affect women psychologically, plus how these sessions affect the immune system and the neuroendocrine system. Lechner says she and her colleagues designed Project CARE to “serve an unmet need in our community and to further our understanding of the ways in which individuals adapt after having breast cancer.”
Lechner says the entire research group is dedicated to providing a caring experience that
has not been available before in the community, and emphasizes that the program will maintain strict rules of confidentiality among participants.
Project CARE is currently enrolling eligible patients for the October and March group
sessions. The women, in addition to being within 6-months of completion of treatment for breast cancer, must self-identify as Black. Participants must meet the eligibility criteria in order to receive compensation. For more information, call the Project CARE office at 305-243-8367.
