CO-CAPTAIN is dedicated to providing evidence-based, person-centred navigation to address cancer care disparities and facilitate primary prevention access, targeting known risk factors such as smoking and overweight in individuals with mental ill-health.

Our goal is to identify barriers and facilitators to primary cancer prevention with key stakeholders, including patients, caregivers, care team members, representatives of mental health organizations, or service managers, but outreaching the whole society. Patient Navigation (PN) has potential applicability across the cancer care continuum, but further research is needed to identify current bottlenecks and barriers that might influence the implementation of PN’s primary cancer prevention programs for individuals with mental health conditions in different healthcare systems across the EU.

 

We aim to co-adapt the features of PN for primary cancer prevention tailored to the specific needs of individuals with mental ill-health and identify implementation strategies for local communities in the 5 pilot sites. Each pilot site will inform the general and specific features of the PN program for cancer prevention, as per the guidelines and training provided by MHE.

The pilot implementation of the PN for primary cancer prevention that includes agencies working with professionals and all patients who can benefit from smoking cessation, physical activity, and diet interventions. CO-CAPTAIN will implement a large-scale pilot of primary cancer prevention in different health and care systems in Europe, informing the blueprint for policy transformation. Our objective is to identify and analyze potential facilitators and critical barriers for the PN for primary cancer prevention implementation process, outcomes, and future dissemination and exploitation strategies using a mixed-methods approach supported by the CFIR and RE-AIM conceptual frameworks. Special attention will be given to reducing the evidence-practice gap in health psychology and capturing the factors influencing behavioural change.

The effectiveness of the intervention and its impact on costs will  be assessed, grouped by the process for an intervention-based measurement of outcome values for individuals with mental ill-health and use precise and data-driven models of health outcomes. CO-CAPTAIN will provide the blueprint for transforming cancer prevention for all persons, integrating PN and delivering primary cancer prevention programs across health and care systems in the EU.