Improving equitable health outcomes and added value for and with cancer patients through health-economics research, health systems research and outcomes research

Expected Outcome

Proposals under this topic should aim to deliver results that are directed and tailored towards, and contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• People at risk of cancer, cancer patients and their caregivers/families benefit from access to more effective and cost-effective, national or regional, cancer control programmes across EU Member States and Associated Countries.
• Researchers, physicians, innovators[1], SMEs and other professionals from different disciplines and sectors have access to national, regional or local data on healthcare spending (such as expenditures, resource allocations, organisation and type of healthcare interventions, and for which cancer indications, infrastructure, medical prescriptions, drug pricing, drug sales, reimbursement data from health insurers, population-based cancer registries or other cancer-centred registry data, longitudinal epidemiology data) for research and commercial purposes.
• National or regional healthcare systems, healthcare providers, policymakers and authorities in European regions, EU Member States and Associated Countries have the evidence to improve equitable health outcomes of cancer patients by addressing direct and indirect costs, delivering value-driven cancer care and tackling organisational challenges of a rapidly-changing, dynamic cancer control[2] landscape.

Scope

Proposals should address all of the following:

• Establish, validate or further refine health-economics research, health systems research, epidemiological or outcomes research methods, models, or modelling to perform (comparative) cost-effectiveness and epidemiological analyses benefiting equitable health outcomes of and added value for people at risk of cancer as well as cancer patients living with and beyond their disease.
• Take into account socio-economic inequalities, socio-demographic, organisational, innovative or cultural trends, socio-cultural or behavioural change (for example in the case of primary prevention or precision medicine) by involving people at risk of cancer or cancer patients and their caregivers/families through research that stimulates social innovation and supports end-user engagement using participative research models.
• Calculate cancer-control related healthcare expenditures[3] and its relation to value-driven healthcare benefitting health outcomes of people at risk of cancer as well as cancer patients living with and beyond their disease, taking into account the needs of the target population and the specificities of healthcare provision at local, regional, or national level, duly reflecting the (cultural) diversity and available resources across EU Member States and Associated Countries.
• Improve health outcomes of people at risk of cancer or cancer patients and their caregivers/families living with and beyond their disease, by demonstrating how to improve access to and the organisation of state-of-the-art, evidence-based, cost-effective cancer control programmes in dedicated cancer centres or medical centres, hospitals, at home or in community settings, taking into account the socio-cultural context, harms and benefits, overall survival or quality of life parameters.

The successful proposals are expected to build on resources made available by the Knowledge Centre on Cancer (KCC) to foster EU alignment and coordination[4].

Successful proposals will be asked to join the 'Understanding' project cluster of the EU Cancer Mission[5] and should include a budget for networking, attendance at meetings and joint activities[6]. The Commission will facilitate coordination of these activities.

[1] Innovators turn research results into new and better services and products, to remain competitive in a global marketplace and to improve the quality of life of Europe’s citizens

[2] cancer control aims to reduce the incidence, morbidity and mortality of cancer and to improve the quality of life of cancer patients in a defined population, through the systematic implementation of evidence-based interventions for prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment, and palliative care

[3] Healthcare expenditure statistics - overview - Statistics Explained - Eurostat

[4] Hosted by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC). Especially through the ’European Guidelines and Quality Assurance Schemes for Breast, Colorectal and Cervical Cancer Screening and Diagnosis‘, and the ’European Cancer Information System (ECIS)’ and the ’European Cancer Inequalities Registry (ECIR), see https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/cancer_en.

[5] To address the objectives of the EU Cancer Mission, participants will collaborate in project clusters to leverage EU-funding, increase networking across sectors and disciplines, and establish a portfolio of EU Cancer Mission R&I and policy actions.

[6] Examples of those activities are organising joint workshops, establishing best practices, joint communication or citizen engagement activities with projects funded under other clusters and pillars of Horizon Europe, or other EU programmes, as appropriate. Proposals are not required to include details of these activities, as they will be defined during the grant agreement preparation and during the life of the project.