Charlotte Ryman

About Charlotte Ryman

Charlotte is a registered nurse since 2007 with employment at Örebro County, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics.

Charlotte´s research focus on Social Determinants of Health and how they may affect the incidence and prognosis of people with head- and neck cancer. The aim of the thesis to understand health disparities and underlying patterns of delaines to diagnosis among patients with head-neck cancer.

The first part of the thesis is a systematic literature review on the concept of health literacy within cancer care. The concept involves cancer patients’ ability to search, understand, evaluate, and apply health information. The study shows that there are individual factors, such as level of education, that make it difficult for individuals to access health information. Limited health literacy is associated with lower adherence to cancer treatment that increase the risk of side effects and mortality.

Forthcoming studies are based on collected material from patients with head and neck cancer at Uppsala University Hospital, Örebro University Hospital and Norrland University Hospital. Research questions involves Social Determinants Health (gender, age, level of education and type of housing) and tumor localization and size, prognosis, and mortality. The last study is planned to be an interview study that involves patients’ experiences of severe diagnosis and the pathway to diagnosis.

The thesis is supervised by Svante Hugosson, associate professor in medicine, Camilla Warnicke, associate professor in social work and disability studies and Karuna Dahlberg, senior lecturer at the Department of Health Sciences.