One of the sessions that we highlighted in our work is work after cancer in low- and middle-income countries and the challenges faced by people, the lack of frameworks and policy for people to return to work after a diagnosis of cancer.

What are some challenges of work after cancer in LMICs?

Finances are a huge problem in low- and middle-income countries for cancer patients. There’s a huge financial burden on them and often financial catastrophe that happens around a cancer diagnosis. So employment, even during a cancer treatment, is incredibly important and the return to work after cancer is even more important and valuable. There are very little policies in place or guidance to support cancer patients as they try to return to work or even continue working while they’re seeking treatment.

How can these challenges be overcome, and what has been done so far?

There’s a lot of stigma and misunderstanding and poor health literacy both for patients but for even healthcare providers and policy-makers and employers on how to integrate people back in. These are real challenges, not just in low resource settings but also in high income settings as well. It’s left to the person with cancer to navigate this on their own. So I really think we need more policy to be put in place, we need advocacy around this and research. There’s a huge amount of research done in high-income countries on return to work but an absolute dearth in low-income countries. We do know that shared decision-making can be really beneficial in terms of creating a plan for your treatment that would help mediate some of the challenges of working and returning to work after cancer.

Are there any guidelines or policies currently in place?

No, there are no policies or guidelines so far that we could see for low-resource settings in particular or low- and middle-income countries specifically. So those are things that need to be put in place. There just isn’t a lot of advocacy or work done in the space so we really need to amplify the importance of this.

Are there any projects in place to fund such research in LMICs?

We think being able to present in a setting like this, we had quite good attendance actually. So perhaps there would be some researchers who would be more likely to pursue this in their work too and to try to fill that gap, we would hope. And we would, as an NGO, try to really search for academic partners to help us do some work around that.