Research Conducted at University of Utah Has Updated Our Knowledge about Cancer (“i Thought There Would Be More I Understood”Health Insurance Literacy Among Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors): Cancer

2022 FEB 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators discuss new findings in Cancer. According to news reporting originating from Salt Lake City, Utah, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Health insurance literacy is crucial for navigating the US healthcare system. Low health insurance literacy may be especially concerning for adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors.”

Financial supporters for this research include Huntsman Cancer Foundation, NIH National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the University of Utah, “To describe AYAs’ health insurance literacy, we conducted semi-structured interviews with AYA survivors, on and off of treatment. We interviewed 24 AYA cancer survivors (aged 18-39 years) between November 2019 and March 2020. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and quality-checked. Using two cycles of structured coding, we explored AYAs’ health insurance literacy and examined thematic differences by policy holder status and age. AYAs were 58.3% female, 79.2% non-Hispanic White, 91.7% heterosexual, and 62.5% receiving cancer treatment. Most participants had employer-sponsored health insurance (87.5%), and 41.7% were their own policy holder. Four themes emerged; in the first theme, most AYAs described beginning their cancer treatment with little to no understanding of their health insurance. This led to the three subsequent themes in which AYAs reported: unclear expectations of what their insurance would cover and their out-of-pocket costs; learning about insurance and costs by trial and error; and how their health insurance literacy negatively impacted their ability to navigate the healthcare system. Our findings, while requiring confirmation in larger samples and in other health systems, suggest that the health insurance literacy needed to navigate insurance and cancer care is low among US AYA survivors and may have health and financial implications.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “As the burden of navigating insurance is often put on patients, health insurance education is an important supportive service for AYA survivors on and off of treatment.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: “i Thought There Would Be More I Understood”Health Insurance Literacy Among Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors. Supportive Care in Cancer, 2022. Supportive Care in Cancer can be contacted at: Springer, One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, Ny, United States. (Springer - www.springer.com; Supportive Care in Cancer - http://www.springerlink.com/content/0941-4355/)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Austin R. Waters, University of Utah, Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, United States. Additional authors for this research include Karely Mann, Perla L. Vaca Lopez, Heydon K. Kaddas, Nicole Ray, Douglas B. Fair, Anne C. Kirchhoff, Echo L. Warner, Tomoko Tsukamoto, Mark A. Lewis, Giselle K. Perez and Elyse R. Park.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-022-06873-2. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)