Dr Diane Mahoney Uncovers Health Disparities Among Black, Hispanic Ovarian Cancer Survivors

Diane Mahoney, PhD, DNP, FNP-BC, WHNP-BC, APRN, assistant professor, University of Kansas Medical Center, School of Nursing; nurse practitioner; and nurse scientist, discusses the inspiration behind her recent study, "Elucidating the Influences of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) on Perceived Overall Health Among African American/Black and Hispanic Ovarian Cancer Survivors Using the NIH All of Us Research Program."

She also interprets her study's findings that Black and Hispanic ovarian cancer survivors have poorer health perceptions due to SDOH. As a nurse scientist, Mahoney's research focuses on SDOH, particularly within female cancers; currently, her focus is on health disparities among patients with ovarian cancer.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Transcript

Could you summarize the objective of your study? What inspired you to investigate this topic?

It kind of goes into my area of research in general with detection and early detection for ovarian cancer. We don't know yet; we're getting closer, but certainly there is no way of screening for disease. So, when we look at the number of cases, African American women and Hispanic women don't have the highest incidence—actually, it's White women—but yet, there's such disparities, and the survival rates are lower.

So, it's important to understand the experiences of survivors. If we know that the odds are really not on their side, it's looking at what can we do to optimize quality of life and, obviously, survival. There's national data that's long existing that discusses different social determinants of health, really looking at demographic factors, access to health care, and really just so many different types of variables.

My interest was focusing on, what are their perceptions? What do they think? How do they view these experiences and how it influences them? Because we certainly know that there's a connection between mind and body and those influences. When you bring in the environment, how does that all mix together? What's the intersections of each of those different variables? That's what I wanted to understand: What are their perceptions of their health based on these experiences?

What SDOH factors contributed most significantly to the poorer health perceptions among Black and Hispanic ovarian cancer survivors?

I can't necessarily say there's one that was most. Of course, the numbers may say that there was higher odds of having a poor perception of your general health or mental health based on social determinants of health. Again, I looked at neighborhood characteristics, I looked at day-to-day discrimination, food and housing insecurity, as well as spiritual life.

They all were pretty influential. The important things, again, are really the intersections of each of those. How do they work together? How does discrimination? Also with different types of family interactions, environmental, the types of food you eat, if you're in those different types of food deserts, if you're stressed about how you are going to pay the bills the next day. So really, I think they all were important, but I'm even more interested in how they all interconnect with different groups of individuals.

Could you discuss any findings that surprised you?

I don't think that they were surprising, but I think that it really challenged me as a health professional, as a scientist, in thinking about how it influenced their mental health, not only their overall physical health and social satisfaction. If you think about mind over body and really having that energy, that net positive outlook on life, how that really helps in how well you do; I think there's a connection between that.

So, looking at the results and how it really influenced their overall perspective, it was very saddening, I think. I came into it with the hypothesis that I knew there would be influences, but I think I was very saddened to see how negatively it influenced their perceptions, and it certainly energized me on next steps.

Reference

McCormick B. SDOH Factors Impact Health Perceptions in Black, Hispanic Ovarian Cancer Survivors. AJMC. Published July 17, 2024. Accessed July 22, 2024. https://www.ajmc.com/view/sdoh-factors-impact-health-perceptions-in-black-hispanic-ovarian-cancer-survivors