Decision making in the cancer context: An introduction to the special series

On April 13, 2005, the Cancer Special Interest Group of the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) held a Pre-Conference Scientific Meeting on “Decision-Making in the Cancer Context—Translation from Basic Science through Population Health. ” The overall goals of the meeting were to come to a better understanding of behavioral science approaches to investigating decision making and to evaluate innovative models of patient decision support delivery, as well as to consider the population health applications of this work. The Pre-Conference Scientific Meeting considered (a) basic and behavioral issues in the affective and social dimensions of patient decision making and decision support; (b) approaches to shared decision making and patient decision support; (c) the role of values perspectives and bioethics related to shared decision making, for individuals and health care providers; and (d) models of delivery to support shared decision making. Subsequent Roundtable discussions were organized around standardized talking points, including difficult or common decisions across the cancer continuum, decision support interventions, and priorities for future research. The Pre-Conference Scientific Meeting was cosponsored by the Basic and Biobehavioral Research Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and SBM. The Basic and Behavioral Research Program of the NCI has long recognized that decision making is fundamental to all aspects of cancer care and is relevant to the entire cancer continuum, and therefore has strongly supported research in this area. Along with many others within the Behavioral Research Program, Drs. Wendy Nelson and Paul Han of the Basic and Biobehavioral Research Branch have led this initiative in three ways (a) with a series of sponsored scientific meetings; (b) through support of the 2002 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality report, “Impact of Cancer-Related Decision Aids” (1); and (c) by a July 2005 special issue of Health Psychology (2) devoted to the marriage of basic research—which focuses on such factors and processes as risk perception, heuristics, biases, affect, motivation, and social influence—with applied decision-making research in cancer prevention and control. This initiative led to the approval of two NCI Program Announcements—“Decision-Making in Cancer: Single-Event Decisions (PA-05-017)” and “Decision Making in Health: Behavior Maintenance (PA 05-016). ” The present special series in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine on Decision Making in the Cancer Context, initiated by Suzanne Miller, represents another exciting step in advancing the science of decision making in cancer control. The articles were invited from researchers presenting at the Pre-Conference Scientific Meeting as well as from representatives from several of the Roundtable discussions. We thank the SBM and the editors of Annals of Behavioral Medicine for this opportunity to share the science of that day with you. The articles in this special series address the key challenges facing the decision-making field in cancer prevention and control, including (a) development of a better understanding of real-world decisions and decision making; (b) identification of