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2025 Royalty Pharma – PCF Young Investigator Award

Health Literacy in Advanced Prostate Cancer Care: Developing Evidence-Based Interventions to Support Patients with Low Health Literacy 

Bashir Al Hussein Al Awamlh, MD
Weill Cornell Medicine

Mentors: Ruth Etzioni, David Nanus

Description:

  • Health literacy is a significant driver of patient outcomes, and its impact on advanced prostate cancer is poorly understood and understudied. Men with low health literacy are two to three times more likely to have higher mortality rates than men with adequate health literacy, and there is a clinical need to investigate this literacy gap to improve patient health outcomes. 
  • Dr. Al Hussein Al Awamlh and his team plan to develop and implement health literacy-tailored interventions; specifically, a web-based program called “PALS” delivering literacy-sensitive education, and peer coaching. 
  • In this project, Dr. Al Hussein Al Awamlh will evaluate patients’ health literacy using this brief, proven survey, and compare patient adherence to medications and appointments, and clinical trial enrollment and genetic testing completion between men with low and adequate health literacy. 
  • The impact of a community-engaged approach using focus groups to engage advanced prostate cancer survivors and illuminate survivorship challenges among men with low health literacy will be assessed.
  • Dr. Al Hussein Al Awamlh will also evaluate the feasibility and implementation outcomes of two interventions, PALS and peer coaching strategies, in patients with low health literacy with the hope of successfully integrating them into routine care to support patients with advanced prostate cancer. 
  • If successful, this project will result in proven interventions that improve cancer outcomes and quality of life in patients with advanced prostate cancer and low health literacy. 

What this means to patients: Low health literacy is a significant but underrecognized driver of poor outcomes in advanced prostate cancer. There are no targeted, scalable interventions to support these patients. Dr. Al Hussein Al Awamlh’s project directly addresses this gap by developing and implementing two evidence-based interventions aimed at improving survivorship in the short term and survival in the long term for men with low health literacy.