Rural Women Connecting for Better Health

Summary

Women who are obese at breast cancer diagnosis have a 1.5 to 2.5 increased risk of recurrence and death compared to their normal weight counterparts. Moreover, weight gain and decreased physical activity are common after diagnosis and also increase the likelihood of breast cancer recurrence and death. Rural women suffer from health disparities in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. Women of the most rural counties also have the highest prevalence of obesity compared to urban women. To address these disparities, the overarching objective of this proposal is to develop a clinically effective and cost efficient strategy for delivering a weight control intervention to rural breast cancer survivors. Group phone-based treatment via conference call is a novel treatment delivery approach that the investigators have shown to be effective for initial weight loss among rural breast cancer survivors and more effective than the standard individual phone-based approach among rural women. This innovative method of providing group treatment addresses access barriers in rural areas and may be especially ideal for rural breast cancer survivors because it provides social support in conjunction with a level of anonymity. However, the impact of group phone counseling during extended care for weight loss maintenance beyond 6 months remains unknown. Weight loss maintenance is the more challenging phase of treatment when weight regain is common, and this regain presents a potential risk for breast cancer recurrence. This randomized controlled trial will evaluate the effects of group phone-based treatment for weight loss maintenance among rural breast cancer survivors, compared to an established mail-based education comparison condition, subsequent to a 6 month group phone-based weight loss phase for both conditions. In addition to the intervention impact on weight loss maintenance, the study will provide estimates of incremental cost-effectiveness per kg loss between the two conditions and the impact on secondary outcomes including quality of life, breast cancer risk biomarkers, dietary intake, and physical activity.

Conditions

• Breast Cancer
• Obesity

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Group phone counseling

Bi-weekly phone counseling sessions from 6 - 18 months

BEHAVIORAL

Newsletter

Bi-weekly newsletter mailings from 6 - 18 months

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Cancer Institute (NCI)

  collaborator NIH

• University of Kansas Medical Center

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Christie Befort, Ph.D. · University of Kansas Medical Center

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Max Age

75 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2011-08-31

Primary Completion

2015-04-30

Completion

2015-10-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations