Abstract for: System Dynamics as a Tool to Support and Design Guidelines for Prostate Cancer Diagnosis and Control in Sub-Saharan Africa

Routine PSA screening for prostate cancer (PCa) is either not recommended due to overuse / over diagnosis in some developed countries, or underutilized or nonexistent as is the case in most Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. With rising health inequities and introduction of the newly developed precision cancer medicine, the development of PCa screening guidelines tailored to African or African American men, who are at highest risk of PCa, ranks as a high priority for implementable policy solutions. Research efforts are initiated to close the gap and suggest the formation of separate guidelines specifically for African American men, yet there are no specific PCa screening guidelines and/or cancer control strategies for men of African descent for Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). As part of a multifaceted action-research agenda, the motivation of this study is to begin to establish an international collaborative of clinical and research experts in developing a dynamic hypothesis to explore the effects of potential underlying factors that account for variations in PCa incidence and mortality rates in men of African descent, and how these disparities can be addressed and corrected with model-driven decision support tools and particularly system dynamics tools, employing complementary skills and data by a multidisciplinary team.