Social framework to judge the importance of breast cancer

Breast cancer (BC) has profound effects on patients, households, and society, necessitating a multidimensional approach to understand its implications fully. This study aimed to develop a conceptual model for a social framework (SF) that assists in identifying group common values and needs for BC interventions in Hungary. The SF reflects diverse perspectives, including healthcare professionals, patients, caregivers, policymakers of health and social care, health technology developers, and corporate and philanthropic supporters of BC initiatives.

A narrative literature review was conducted to identify value elements (VEs) of BC. VEs were categorized into groups and further clustered into sub-groups within each main category. This literature-based conceptual model was contextualized and adapted to the Hungarian setting through individual and group interviews with various societal group representatives. A closing validation meeting fostered stakeholders' reflection on the draft model.

The final conceptual model incorporates five traditional (e.g., clinical outcomes, adverse events, survival, and direct medical costs), nine patient-centric (e.g., personal milestones, patient experience, and financial burden), and seven societal (e.g., disease severity, the presence of the disease around us, and indirect costs) VEs.

Our study is the first to present a comprehensive SF that provides insights into key disease challenges and why different BC interventions are important to various stakeholder groups via capturing traditional, patient-centric, and societal VEs. It informs decision-making within and beyond the healthcare domain by supporting the evaluation of policies, health technologies, public and civil society initiatives in Hungary.

While BC is a priority disease area for all stakeholder groups, their views on what contributes to the success of policy decisions are different. If policymakers intend to represent the interests of the whole society, they should aim to express the value of policy interventions in a comprehensive SF.