Dissemination, implementation, and effectiveness of the exercise oncology survivorship partnership model: reaching rural cancer survivors to enhance quality of life

The research evidence supports that exercise for cancer survivors provides numerous physical and psychosocial benefits, ultimately enhancing quality of life. However, there has been minimal effort to move this substantial evidence into practice, and the limited work done to date has remained primarily in urban settings. Thus, rural cancer survivors face additional barriers to accessing exercise as a supportive cancer care resource, and as a result report poorer health and lower quality of life. Our goal is to implement exercise programs so that rural cancer survivors (RCS) can benefit from exercise as a self-management strategy to enhance health and quality of life in cancer survivorship. Sustainable implementation, through partnerships between health care providers and community fitness experts, will create more equitable access to exercise as a supportive cancer care resource in rural settings, and thereby increase RCS exercise levels. In this cancer exercise implementation-effectiveness project, we will use an integrated knowledge translation approach to move the current evidence-base that supports the role of exercise for cancer survivors (CS), into sustainable and effective community-based rural settings that will optimize the delivery of exercise to rural CS (RCS). Our project builds expertise in rural settings, facilitates community-based partnerships for service delivery, and assesses benefits of exercise for RCS. Our goal is implement exercise programs so that rural cancer survivors (RCS) can benefit from exercise as a self-management strategy to enhance health and quality of life. Our model utilizes existing community-based exercise expertise and resources to provide RCS with access to safe and effective exercise programs closer to home, removing barriers to participation and facilitating exercise adherence. A sustainable and feasible exercise oncology survivorship model will be disseminated across Canada to create more equitable access to exercise through partnerships between health care providers and community fitness experts. CIHR partnership funds: $1,113,855