Community governance and nutrition-oriented cancer care for women - policy pathways to reduce survival disparities

Sep 22, 2026

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Nutrition is increasingly viewed as a modifiable determinant of treatment tolerance, metabolic health, quality of life, and survivorship outcomes for women with cancer. Many nutrition-oriented interventions are delivered as individual clinical advice, while key influences on dietary behavior and nutrition vulnerability arise outside oncology settings. These include food insecurity, unequal food environments, limited dietitian access, fragmented referral systems, low nutrition literacy, transport barriers, and gendered caregiving roles. Community governance can link oncology with primary care, public health, community organizations, food assistance, digital platforms, and patient groups.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Literature search and conceptual scope

Nutrition challenges in women with cancer

Barriers to nutrition-oriented cancer care

Role of community governance

Definition and scope of community governance

Governance pathways for nutrition support

Nutrition screening and referral

Food support and follow-up monitoring

TYPE Mini Review PUBLISHED 17 August 2026 DOI 10. 3389/fpubh.2026.1912567 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Chunfang Ha, General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, China REVIEWED BY Islam Mazahirul, Jazan University, Saudi Arabia *CORRESPONDENCE Xiaomin Ma [sxgczyxyxgb@163.com](sxgczyxyxgb@163.com) RECEIVED 18 June 2026 REVISED 22 July 2026 ACCEPTED 29 July 2026 PUBLISHED 17 August 2026 CITATION Hao L, Ma X and Feng Y (2026) Community governance and nutrition-oriented cancer care for women: policy pathways to reduce survival disparities. Front. Public Health 14:1912567 . doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2026.1912567 COPYRIGHT © 2026 Hao, Ma and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Community governance and nutrition-oriented cancer care for women: policy pathways to reduce survival disparities Liqian Hao1 , Xiaomin Ma2* and Yiyan Feng1 1 Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan, China, 2 Shanxi Engineering Vocational College, Taiyuan, China Nutrition is increasingly recognized as a modiﬁable determinant of treatment tolerance, metabolic health, quality of life, and survivorship outcomes among women with cancer. However, nutrition-oriented cancer care is often delivered as an individual-level clinical recommendation, while many determinants of dietary behavior and nutritional vulnerability arise outside oncology clinics. Food insecurity, unequal food environments, limited dietitian availability, fragmented referral systems, low nutrition literacy, transport barriers, and gendered caregiving roles can prevent women with breast, cervical, ovarian, endometrial, and other cancers from receiving timely and effective nutrition support. Community governance provides a policy framework for linking oncology services with primary care, public health agencies, community organizations, food assistance programs, digital platforms, and patient groups. This Mini Review examines how community governance can strengthen nutrition-oriented cancer care for women and reduce survival disparities. We summarize pathways through which community-level conditions inﬂuence nutritional status and survivorship, distinguish established evidence from promising implementation models and expert-policy rationale, and propose governance mechanisms for nutrition screening, referral, food support, and follow-up. Community-governed nutrition care should move beyond service volume and evaluate whether nutritionally vulnerable women receive accessible, culturally appropriate, and outcomeoriented support across the cancer continuum. KEYWORDS cancer nutrition, community governance, food insecurity, health equity, nutrition policy, service integration, survivorship care, women’s cancers 1 Introduction Women with cancer frequently face nutritional challenges across diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and long-term survivorship. Malnutrition, unintentional weight loss, sarcopenia, obesity, metabolic dysfunction, micronutrient insuﬃciency, and poor diet quality can inﬂuence treatment tolerance, complication risk, physical function, quality of life, and survival-related outcomes ( 1–6) . In breast, endometrial, ovarian, cervical, and other women’s cancers, nutritional status also intersects with endocrine state, systemic inﬂammation, insulin–IGF signaling, adipokine biology, gut microbial metabolism, and body-composition change (2, 7–10) . Thus, nutrition is not merely supportive care; it is a biologically plausible and clinically actionable component of cancer survivorship. Frontiers in Public Health 01 [frontiersin.org](fron

FAQs

Why is nutrition considered important in cancer survivorship for women?

Nutrition influences treatment tolerance, metabolic health, quality of life, complication risk, physical function, and survival-related outcomes. It is also biologically actionable across the cancer continuum.

What limits women’s access to nutrition-oriented cancer care?

Key barriers include lack of routine nutrition risk screening and dietitian referral, limited follow-up, food insecurity, unequal food environments, low nutrition literacy, transport barriers, fragmented referrals, and gendered caregiving responsibilities.

How can community governance reduce survival disparities?

Community governance coordinates decision-making and service delivery across oncology, primary care, public health, social organizations, food assistance, digital platforms, and patient groups. It supports cross-sector pathways for screening, referral, food access, education, social support, and outcome monitoring.

Sep 22, 2026

Upload by hdkawk