Improving Survivorship Care for Head and Neck Cancer Patients (2026-2027)

Background

Head and neck cancers affect more than 67,000 people in the United States each year. These cancers, which impact areas essential for speaking, swallowing and breathing, often involve intensive treatment such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Survivors face long-term challenges with communication, nutrition, pain and appearance, and many rely on feeding tubes or tracheostomies. They are also twice as likely as other cancer survivors to report disability.

Persistent racial disparities compound these burdens. The Black-White survival gap in head and neck cancer is one of the largest across all cancers. Survivors frequently experience fragmented care while navigating multiple specialists, adding stress for patients who already face high rates of emotional distress, depression, anxiety and suicidality.

Previous work shows that social support, coordinated multidisciplinary care and structured survivorship programs can improve quality of life. In an increasingly disconnected healthcare environment, interventions that foster connection, improve continuity of care and address supportive needs are essential to reducing disparities and improving outcomes.

Project Description

This project team will design, implement and evaluate a patient navigation and supportive care program for head and neck cancer survivors treated at the Duke Cancer Institute. Students will work closely with clinical collaborators to identify unmet care needs, deliver navigation support and develop an evidence-based training curriculum for student navigators.

The project has three central aims:

1. Assess unmet needs and develop a standardized tool:

Students will use validated surveys such as the Distress Thermometer and the Supportive Care Needs Survey to identify domains of unmet physical and emotional needs among survivors. These findings will inform a comprehensive supportive care needs assessment tool, developed in collaboration with the Duke Cancer Institute.

2. Improve access to supportive resources through patient navigation and peer support:

Student navigators will connect patients with existing supportive care services using closed-loop referrals in partnership with nurse navigators. The project will also build upon a peer support group launching in January 2026, facilitated by a licensed family therapist. Students will evaluate the impact of both navigation and peer support through pre- and post-program surveys.

3. Develop and evaluate a training curriculum for student navigators:

Students will design a supportive oncology training program that includes lectures, experiential learning, motivational interviewing, communication skills, survivorship care and multidisciplinary approaches. The curriculum will be paired with a complementary course on survivorship and supportive oncology. Curriculum effectiveness will be assessed using quantitative and qualitative data, including surveys, focus groups and reflective journals.

Students and faculty will work in interdisciplinary pods that support cohorts of patients while engaging in research, program evaluation and scholarly writing.

Anticipated Outputs

Supportive care needs assessment tool
Peer support group model integrated into survivorship care
Evidence-based student navigator training curriculum
Scholarly products such as literature reviews and cohort or population analyses
Program data to support future research and grant submissions

Student Opportunities

Ideally, this project team will include 11 graduate students and 9 undergraduate students. Undergraduates may come from psychology, neuroscience, public health, pre-health fields or sociology. Graduate students may come from medicine, nursing, speech-language pathology or related clinical programs. A student with training in biostatistics or population health will support program evaluation.

Students will be organized into pods, each supporting a group of 10-12 patients. Activities will include training sessions led by expert faculty, direct patient navigation, support group participation, follow-up coordination and documentation of patient-reported outcomes. Students will also contribute to evaluation projects and research efforts tied to supportive oncology and survivorship.

Graduate students will serve in leadership roles, mentoring undergraduate navigators and supporting curriculum development and data analysis. Throughout the year, students will gain skills in communication, interdisciplinary collaboration, patient-centered care, mixed-methods evaluation and supportive oncology.

The team will meet weekly, with monthly journal clubs to support deeper learning and discussion of supportive care literature. A graduate project manager has already been identified.

Timing

Summer 2026 – Spring 2027

Summer 2026 (optional):

Obtain IRB approval
Continue monthly support groups
Develop navigator training curriculum
Conduct literature review on supportive care and survivorship

Fall 2026:

Implement navigator training
Conduct pre-program focus groups with student navigators
Match navigators with patients
Administer baseline surveys
Begin closed-loop referrals and monthly data tracking
Continue peer support groups

Spring 2027:

Continue navigation and peer support programs
Conduct mid-year evaluation
Collect post-program surveys
Hold post-program focus groups with patients and navigators
Refine training materials
Prepare manuscripts and a sustainability toolkit

Summer 2027 (optional):

Continue support groups
Transition navigator leadership to next year’s cohort

Crediting

Academic credit available for fall and spring semesters