In 1971, Julian Tudor-Hart highlighted the paradox that those with the greatest health need often receive the least care. Nurses interact with every person impacted by cancer, However, our capacity to find and direct increasingly scarce resources to those most in need is under-researched and under-utilised.
This presentation details a program of work undertaken to develop the Nursing Equity Assessment Tool - an internationally novel resource to help nurses quickly find people disadvantaged by social determinant of health needs and navigate them to the multi-disciplinary and cross sector support necessary to achieve optimal cancer outcomes.
Prof Krishnasamy is an internationally recognised cancer nurse-researcher who has built a leading program of consumer-informed cancer supportive care research that has been translated into health policy. Her work is defined by a commitment to addressing equitable access to cancer care, with particular focus on older people and those with poor outcome cancers.
Prof Krishnasamy is inaugural lead of the Nursing and Midwifery Research Collaborative (est. 2025) based at The University of Melbourne. In 2018, she was awarded lifetime membership of the Cancer Nurses Society of Australia (CNSA) for services to cancer nursing and in July 2022, was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She has authored or co‐authored successful competitive research grants totalling AU$38.3M and has published over 130 peer-reviewed papers. She is past President of the Cancer Nurses Society of Australia and the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia.
Holly Chung (BSc, MPH) is an experienced health services researcher specialising in qualitative, mixed-methods, and participatory research approaches. Since 2020, she has served as a Research Assistant with Peter Mac’s Centre for Health Services Research in Cancer, contributing to investigations at the intersection of cancer care delivery and health systems. She has a strong conceptual background in the intersection between social determinants of health, equity, and health policy through her Master of Public Health from the University of Melbourne, where her capstone focused on lobbying and revolving door practices of harmful industries and actors.
Her research is distinguished by a commitment to consumer-driven methodologies that centre patient and community perspectives in the research process. Holly is particularly interested in knowledge translation and the mechanisms through which research evidence can be effectively integrated into health policy development to improve equity and outcomes in healthcare delivery
