Supportive and Palliative Care

In palliative care, many drugs are used to provide relief for not only the symptoms caused by the disease itself, such as pain and fatigue, but also unpleasant symptoms (e.g., nausea and skin disorders) caused by treatment of the disease (e.g., anticancer drug treatment, radiation therapy). However, many of these treatments lack adequate scientific evidence for efficacy and safety. Moreover, the establishment of standard treatment based on quality clinical research is also an important issue internationally. This group actively supports research on pharmaceutical interventions in palliative and supportive care for various distressing symptoms.

Psychosocial and Survivorship Care

Psychosocial and Behavioral Care covers all interventions involving human behavior. The people covered by this care include cancer survivor themselves, their family, support staff, and society at large. Naturally, there is clinical research on support methods for individual survivors, but social interventions involving the community as a whole are also under consideration. The “behavior” mentioned here includes people’s knowledge, awareness, and attitude. Applicable interventions are envisioned for a range of modalities, including ways of providing medical treatment and care (e.g., research on the psychosocial content and ways of providing care), communication between patients and medical professionals, decision-making support, nursing and caregiving, rehabilitation, food and nutrition, work, physical activity, psychotherapy, and psychological experiments. Outcomes include health outcomes, such as emotional distress, suicide, physical symptoms, and QOL; behavioral indices, such as medical safety, biological reactions, number of reactions, and implementation rate; and patient reported outcomes (PROs), such as self-efficacy, and adaptation, considered from various perspectives. It is hoped research will contribute to the innovation of medical treatment and care that touches people’s hearts and minds.

Dissemination and Implementation Sciences/ Diversity and Surveillance

Implementation sciences is an interdisciplinary academic field that develops, verifies, and builds a body of knowledge on methods to incorporate and establish evidence-based interventions effectively and efficiently into routine health care. It involves the collaboration of multilevel stakeholders, such as patients, health care professionals, workplaces, communities, and governments. J-SUPPORT recognizes the necessity of implementation sciences and has been providing support for implementation sciences in a broad range of fields, outside oncology, since 2018. Based on these activities, implementation sciences have developed in a cross-disciplinary manner, also including international health. In 2019, the National Center Consortium in Implementation Science for Health Equity (N-EQUITY) was established with the support of the Japan Health Research Promotion Bureau (JH) (https://www.ncc.go.jp/jp/icc/behav-sci/n-equity/index.html). Since 2021, N-EQUITY has moved forward with implementation sciences support for J-SUPPORT research, and research is being promoted with the aim of strengthening the network. Surveillance support refers to continuous support of the evaluation of the current state of palliative care, observational studies, and requirements for the development of supportive care.