The Behavioural Science and Early Diagnosis of Cancer Group has expertise in understanding uptake of cancer screening (focusing on colorectal and cervical screening), communication and decision-making in screening, measuring patient experiences, and assessing knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about cancer. Core funding for the group comes from the Policy Research Unit in Cancer awareness, Screening and Early Diagnosis. We also receive project specific funding from Cancer Research UK, and the National Institute of Health research.
Our group is part of the KCL/UCL/QMUL Cancer Behavioural Science Network Meeting and the CRUK's City of London Centre and UKSBM's Cancer Special Interest Group.
Contact
This group is led by Professor Christian von Wagner (c.wagner@ucl.ac.uk).
Research
Ongoing projects
Cancer attitudes and communication
- Reporting Guidelines for Social Media Research (RESOME)
- Pharmacy-based Research in Cancer (PHABRIC)
Co-producing Practice Guidelines and Research Recommendations to support Early Diagnosis of Colorectal Cancer in Community Pharmacy (Starting December 2022)
Colorectal cancer screening
- Lancashire Bowel Cancer Screening Promotion Team Call for a Kit evaluation (ongoing)
- Developing and Evaluating a Chatbot to support informed choice about bowel cancer screening uptake (With UCL Computer Science and St Mark's Bowel Cancer Screening Centre, Starting Autumn 2023)
Patient reported Experience of Cancer Screening
- Developing new Patient reported Cancer Screening Questionnaires
- Evaluation of At-Home Capsule Endoscopy (together with UCLH Endoscopy)
- Risk Stratification in Colorectal Cancer Screening (under development)
Current PhD projects
- Examining peoples' experience with the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Program (Ghalia Kayal)
Comparing barriers to Breast, Cervical and Colorectal Cancer Screening and exploring Teachable moments to optimise informed choice across all screening programmes (Margaret Duku)
Completed projects
Cancer attitudes and communication
- Ethnicity and beliefs about cancer prevention
- Exploring attitudes towards the European Code Against Cancer (ECAC)
- International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership (ICBP) Module 2
- Health literacy and cancer screening in older adults
Cervical cancer prevention and HPV
Colorectal cancer screening
- Optimising Radiological Bowel Imaging Tests (ORBIT)
- Health literacy and colorectal cancer screening prevention
- Strategies to reduce the social gradient in uptake of bowel cancer screening: four randomised control trials (ASCEND)
- Text Reminders In Colorectal Cancer Screening (TRICCS)
- Flexi-Guide