Our ambition
To develop NavCare-EU, a navigation intervention that will improve the quality of life and well-being of older people with cancer and their families, will foster empowerment, and will promote timely and equitable access to health and social care services.
Our project
EU Navigate is an intercontinental, interdisciplinary and intersectoral research project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme, with grant agreement no. 101057361 (2022-2027).
A fast-growing number of older people with cancer and their family carers living in the community have the right to receive timely access to health and social care services. Yet, many of them still do not receive the health and social services they need, and they are also not always aware that these services exist. Navigation interventions using specially-trained lay navigators hold promise to meet this increasing demand.
Research objectives
In the next five years, the EU Navigate research project will contribute high-quality evidence on navigation programmes for older people with cancer and their families.
We aim to develop and implement NavCare-EU, an innovative navigation programme, and evaluate its effectiveness and cost-effectiveness in improving the quality of life and well-being of older people with cancer and their family caregivers, as well as how it is implemented in practice.
Methodology
DESIGN: Fast-track pragmatic randomised controlled trial (RCT)
METHODS: We will include about 530 patients with cancer aged 70 years and over and/or their family caregivers in six European countries, including Belgium, Ireland, Poland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy…
Fast-track pragmatic RCT
What is it?
While explanatory trials serve to confirm a physiological or clinical hypothesis, the purpose of pragmatic trials is to inform a clinical or policy decision by providing evidence for adoption of the intervention into real-world clinical practice…
EU Navigate Work packages
EU Navigate addresses its main aims through eight work packages
WP1
WP1 aims to manage the consortium and the project, to coordinate and monitor the progress of EU NAVIGATE towards the deliverables and milestones and to facilitate the internal and external communication.
WP2
WP2 aims to prepare a standardised NavCare-EU intervention for all countries through translations, cross-country adaptation and standardisation of the Nav-Care© intervention toolkit through user and stakeholder involvement, and through feasibility and pilot testing of the intervention toolkit with users and stakeholders in each country.
WP3
WP3 aims to prepare, standardise, and test data collection for the pragmatic RCT using carefully translated and validated questionnaires in the different countries.
WP4
WP4 entails an economic evaluation and cost-effectiveness study.
WP5
To optimise the NavCare-EU intervention for reducing suffering and improving quality of life for patients and family carers in different societies, WP4 aims to find out “what works best for whom” through subgroup and country comparative analyses.
WP6
Throughout the trial, a convergent mixed-method process evaluation and implementation evaluation embedded within the pragmatic trial will be performed.
WP7
This WP concerns a scoping review and mapping study of existing navigation services and structures for cancer patients across the EU and beyond.
WP8
WP8 is devoted to developing robust dissemination, exploitation, and communication activities to ensure engagement with the public, patients and other stakeholders during the implementation and post-implementation phase of the project and to ensure the project meets the expected impacts.
