Erin O'Carroll Bantum, PhD
	Assistant Professor (Researcher), Prevention and Control Program, Cancer Research Center of Hawai‘i PhD (Clinical Psychology - Emphasis in Health Psychology), Loma Linda University; MA (Psychology), Loma Linda University ebantum@crch.hawaii.edu

Publication list via PubMed

As a clinical health psychologist my research focuses on psychological adjustment to cancer.  I am currently spending the majority of my time as co-leader of a project sponsored by the Department of Defense with the primary aim of implementing an online health behavior change project with people who have survived cancer. This project involves a collaboration with Stanford University in which one of the novel aspects of the online intervention is that it will be moderated by others who have also survived cancer. This project was designed by hoping to use the period after treatment as a widow of opportunity, given this is a time when many people who have experienced cancer are interested in changing their health behaviors.  In focus groups ran with both cancer survivors and healthcare providers fatigue, diet, exercise, and stress management were described as areas where most improvement is needed, so the website will target these interest areas.

I will soon be working with colleagues from our Prevention and Control program as well as Natural Products to test a well-validated tool (Patient-centered Assessment and Counseling for Exercise + Nutrition, or PACE+; Patrick et al., 2001) with childhood survivors of cancer and their parents.  This tool helps identify how ready an individual might be to change health behaviors, which has been identified as a need in this population.  As part of the team I will spend most of my time focused on how the participants in the study have coped with diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship as a way of better understanding what might be getting in the way of making lasting health behavior changes.

In addition, I am still collaborating with colleagues at Loma Linda University on a number of projects.  These projects primarily focus on understanding and then implementing interventions to promote emotional coping behaviors.  We are currently planning to continue work in the area of identifying linguistic markers of coping strategies.  There are many opportunities to collect textual data from cancer survivors that can be used to identify these markers and to then develop interventions to promote adjustment.  We will soon be conducting a second phase of a study that began in Southern California evaluating the impact of textual and video feedback on written narratives about trauma.  The second phase of the study will include college students in Southern California as well as Oahu.

In the upcoming months I plan to investigate how socialization and culture impact the experience and expression of emotion for people who have had cancer.  Coping with emotion by approaching versus avoiding the thoughts and feelings that are inherent in a traumatic experience, such as cancer has proved to be beneficial in numerous studies, although the cultural impact of both the experience and expression and emotion is crucial to understand before designing interventions for our population here in Hawai‘i.

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Selected Publications

Sanders,S.L., Bantum,E.O., Owen,J.E., Thornton,A.A., & Stanton,A.L. (in press). Supportive care needs in patients with lung cancer. Psycho-Oncology.

Bantum, E.O. & Owen, J.E. (2009) Evaluating the validity of content analysis programs for identification of emotional expression in cancer narratives.  Psychological Assessment, 21(1), 79-88.

Owen, J.E., Bantum, E.O., & Golant, M. (2008). Benefits and challenges experienced by professional facilitators of online support groups for cancer survivors.  Psycho-Oncology.

Bantum, E.O. & Owen, J.E.  (2008). Use of linguistics to better understand and promote coping in cancer patients. In L.K. Jacobs (Eds.) Coping with Cancer.Hauppauge NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Bantum, E.O., Donovan, K., & Owen, J.E. (2007). A review of outcomes associated with psychosocial therapies for breast cancer. Journal of Health Outcomes Management, 14(6), 1-12.

Sanders, S., Pedro, L., Bantum, E., & Galbraith, M. (2006). Couples' surviving prostate cancer: Long-term intimacy needs and concerns following treatment.  Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing, 10(4), 503-508.

Active Grants

E. Bantum, Associate Principal Investigator
"Web-based Intervention to Improve Health Behaviors of Cancer Survivors"
May 2007-May 2010

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