Abstract
Oncology health services research (HSR) is a broad, multidimensional field. Current areas of research foci may be informative. We searched Medline for oncology HSR papers published in English in a single year (2009). Abstracted data related to access, quality, cost, health/wellbeing, place on the cancer continuum and study design. Among 1113 papers, the most commonly studied HSR domain was quality-of-care (65%). Within the care continuum, ‘treatment’ received the greatest attention (37%), and ‘prevention’ the least (5%). More specifically, treatment-related quality-of-care was most often studied (23%). Breast cancer was the most common site focus (28%). Most studies were descriptive (75%), retrospective (35%) or cross-sectional (35%). These findings might inform the decisions of researchers or policy makers seeking to improve cancer health services delivery.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
CF Snyder is funded by a Mentored Research Scholar Grant from the American Cancer Society (MRSG-08-011-01-CPPB). MD Brundage is supported in part by a research chair award from Cancer Care Ontario, Canada. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.