The Geographic Health Equity Alliance (GHEA) is partnering with SelfMade Health Network and Nuestras Voces Adelante Network to host a four-part webinar series titled “Upstream Approaches in Cancer Prevention.” This series focuses on policy, systems, and environmental change strategies that address upstream social determinants of health that contribute to an increased cancer burden .It will focus on HPV vaccination, broadband access, food and nutritional security and the built environment.
On March 21st Dr. Whitney Zahnd from the Advancing Cancer and Rural Equity (ACRE) Lab at the University of Iowa hosted part 2 of this series with a webinar titled: “Advocating for Policy Change to Support Expansion of Broadband Access.” In this webinar, Dr. Zahnd addressed the following objectives:
- To understand the role that broadband access can play in cancer prevention and control.
- To use data to advocate for policy change for broadband access.
- To identify partners and policy levers for broadband access.
The webinar provided an overview of broadband definitions, highlighting a recent change in how the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) benchmarks broadband deployment. Additionally, Dr. Zahnd showed that broadband access is now considered a super-determinant of health that plays an important role in health outcomes. She went on to highlight the role that broadband access plays in cancer prevention and control, specifically accessing cancer-related information, facilitating telehealth virtual visits, supporting remote patient monitoring of symptoms and medication tracking, allowing patient portal access, and supporting “Project ECHO”.
The webinar also presented several sources of information to advocate for policy change related to broadband access in a cancer context, such as briefs from the NCI’s Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) which provides information about use of technology to access cancer-related data. Additionally, sources of broadband access, speed, and funding are provided focusing on geographic data that may help target policies and funding.
Finally, the webinar discussed the importance of federal and state policies, highlighting the numerous federal agencies that have played an increasing role in broadband access since the COVID-19 pandemic as well as important state-level policy levers related to governance, funding, and infrastructure.
The webinar recording is available here, and the slides are available here.
Whitney Zahnd
Whitney Zahnd, PhD is an assistant professor at the University of Iowa's Department of Health Management and Policy and full member of the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her research employs health services research, social epidemiological, and spatial methods to address rural cancer disparities across the cancer continuum and to evaluate access to health care services. She has a particular interest in reducing cancer disparities among rural minority populations. Dr. Zahnd serves on the board of the Iowa Rural Health Association.