SRPH assists in designing app for cancer survivors

(COLLEGE STATION, TX) — The Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Healthy Survivorship phone  application was launched at the “Care Beyond Cancer: An Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Summit,” sponsored by Seton HealthCare Family, March 30 in Austin.

Deborah Vollmer Dahlke, chair of the Cancer Alliance of Texas and doctoral student at the Texas A&M Health Science Center (TAMHSC) School of Rural Public Health, helped design the phone app, which targets cancer survivors from 15-39 years old. It is downloadable at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aya-healthy-survivorship/id513642187 

The AYA Healthy Survivorship phone app assesses health habits using an interactive assessment tool that includes a Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator. The assessment gives a score for lifestyle, physical activity, diet and nutrition, and well-being.

The phone app also offers personalized tips for being more active, eating better and living a healthier life, along with current guidelines on cancer prevention screening, with links to the CureSearch™ for Children’s Cancer late effects guidelines for childhood cancer survivors. Most importantly, the phone app links subscribers to a secure Healthy Survivorship website where a cancer survivorship plan can be developed (http://www.healthysurvivorship.org/)

Regents Professor Marcia Ory, Ph.D., of the TAMHSC-School of Rural Public Health, notes the importance of such an app for adolescent and young adult cancer survivors who often lack clear guidance about cancer follow-up care and what can be done to foster healthy survivorship by engaging in health promoting lifestyle behaviors and establishing a survivorship plan.

“Drawing on evidence-based guidelines and practices, this app has the potential to reach a large number of adolescent and young adult cancer survivors and make a difference in the quality of their post-treatment lives,” Dr. Ory said.

Development of the AYA Healthy Survivorship phone application was supported in part through the Communities of Texas: Cancer Activity Research Education Support (CTxCARES) program, a project funded through the Center for Community Health Development, a Prevention Research Center funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and located at the TAMHSC-School of Rural Public Health. Dr. Ory serves as principal investigator of the CTxCARES program.