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Leveraging informatics to improve communication and outcomes of genetic counseling: The evolving landscape of cancer care.

Award Number: K00CA294165
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2024
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 05/31/2030

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Leveraging informatics to improve communication and outcomes of genetic counseling: The evolving landscape of cancer care. - Effective cancer genetic counseling is critical for ensuring patients understand and retain key information about their genetic testing results, are equipped to inform at-risk family members, and are prepared to engage in subsequent health management recommendations for cancer prevention. Understanding which components of cancer genetic counseling are most impactful is a key prerequisite for improving patient outcomes. Currently, progress in research is limited by bottlenecks associated with (1) evaluating communication content to establish associations with outcomes and (2) collecting and analyzing data at scale across broad populations. The overall objectives of the proposed research are to advance methods to overcome these research bottlenecks, which will enable new insights to improve patient outcomes in genetic counseling and optimize a new model of post-test counseling. Understanding which aspects of communication enable positive patient outcomes is critically needed, particularly as demand for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) genetic testing and counseling increases and eligibility criteria for testing expands. The expanded population eligible for testing has outpaced the number of genetic counselors (GCs) qualified to provide these services and resulted in a new model of post-test only genetic counseling. This is a significant shift from the traditional model of seeing patients for both pre- and post-test genetic counseling. It is unknown how this shift impacts GC communication or patient outcomes after counseling. To address the research bottlenecks, aim 1 of my proposed K00 research will expand on my F99 by implementing new methods of testing post-test HBOC genetic counseling communication. I will (a) test the effect of communication elements on patient responses to simulated GC sessions and (b) develop and test methods and models to reflect patient impressions by leveraging artificial intelligence informatics. In aim 2, I will extend my experience with coding clinical communication by developing new skills in natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLM), further addressing the identified research bottlenecks. I will automate an existing clinical communication coding framework to increase the efficiency, scalability, and shareability of communication evaluation and reduce existing barriers to broader implementation. To do this, I will (a) adapt and (b) evaluate an LLM for automated utterance-level coding of communication within post-test counseling. My long-term goal is to sustainably improve cancer genetic counseling such that patients are prepared to engage in cancer prevention and to contribute scalable resources to communication science more broadly. Ultimately, this research will help identify specific communication targets for adapting/developing communication skills training and allow for wider dissemination and implementation of communication skills training and evaluation. The proposed aims directly address NCI scientific priorities of increasing early detection and prevention of hereditary cancer, and the proposed training plan will help me establish myself as an independent cancer and genetic counseling researcher.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = $99,216 )
2026	2026	DANA-FARBER CANCER INSTITUTE, INC.	450 BROOKLINE AVE	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	000	3	7/23/2026	EXTENSION WITH OR WITHOUT FUNDS	$97,305
2026	2026	DANA-FARBER CANCER INSTITUTE, INC.	450 BROOKLINE AVE	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	001	3	8/14/2026	EXTENSION WITH OR WITHOUT FUNDS	$1,911
														Subtotal = $99,216

Grand Total All Awards = $99,216

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Leveraging informatics to improve communication and outcomes of genetic counseling: The evolving landscape of cancer care.

Award Number: K00CA294165

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2024

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 05/31/2030

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