Poster Presentation 2025 Joint Meeting of the COSA ASM and IPOS Congress

Inequities in nutrition services across Australian cancer care: findings from a national survey (126633)

Emily Jeffery 1 , Merran Findlay 2 3 , Irene Deftereos 4 , Jenelle Loeliger 5 , Nicole Kiss 6
  1. School of Population Health, Curtin University, Bentley, Western Australia, Australia
  2. SWS Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  3. Chris O'Brien Lifehouse, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
  4. Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Western Health, Footscray, Victoria, Australia
  5. Nutrition and Speech Pathology Department, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  6. Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia

Objectives/purpose

To describe the nutrition and dietetics services available in Australian cancer care and to identify inequities in service availability.

Sample and setting

A national cross-sectional survey was distributed to managers or team leaders of nutrition and dietetics or allied health services within acute health services providing cancer treatment in Australia.

Procedures

A 30-item survey on dietetic services for people with cancer was purpose-built by a team of Australian cancer nutrition clinical and research experts and included questions on service availability by tumour group, treatment stage and modality. The survey was distributed via email to 176 dietetics managers or team leaders between October 2024 and February 2025.

Results

Sixty-seven health services participated (38% response rate) and most were public (67%) and metropolitan-based (58%). Dietetic services were predominantly referral-based (48-81%) across all tumour groups, treatment stages and modalities. Less than half (47%) of health services  provided routine dietetic care for high-malnutrition risk tumour groups. Private health services did not provide routine dietetic care for high-malnutrition risk tumour groups receiving systemic treatments or radiotherapy. The proportion of health services providing routine dietetic care to high-malnutrition tumour groups did not differ between regional and metropolitan locations (p>0.05), with the exception of after treatment, where a higher proportion of regional services provided routine dietetic care compared with metropolitan services (41% vs. 4%, p=0.006). Fifty-eight percent of health services reported no pathway for referral or no community-based dietetic services available after treatment.

Conclusion and clinical implications

This national survey has demonstrated inequitable access to dietetic care for patients at high risk of malnutrition treated within the private sector. Patients at high risk of malnutrition treated in regional locations had equal or better access to dietetic care. Policy change at a national level is recommended to support service and workforce planning to address these inequities.