Audrey Morgan
Research Mentor: Dr. Nikhil Parekh
Mentor Department: Wayne State University, NonUM
Author(s): Not Available
Session: Session 5 (2:00 PM – 2:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 18
Abstract
Maintaining one’s health and well-being requires more than just routinely participating in allopathic medical practices. Though it’s necessary to follow one’s doctors’ treatment plans or prescriptions, most individuals lack knowledge that combining those approaches with Integrative or Precision Medicine techniques offers a more precise, holistic, healing-focused approach to your health. Integrative medicine focuses on scientific uses of meditation, nutritional analysis, spiritual care, yoga, and tai chi, and other areas that focus on developing lifestyle changes that prioritize the mind, body, and spirit. The growing field of Precision Medicine and it’s techniques, like genetic and blood testing, helps individuals manage their own physiology more precisely. To understand how individuals within the community of Ann Arbor and beyond used or understood Integrative and Precision Medicine, a 47-question survey was randomly administered through text messaging, emailing, and through a QR code distributed by hanging up flyers around the Ann Arbor campus. An analysis of survey responses was viewed in Qualtrics, cleaned in Excel, and then statistically analyzed using R Studio. The survey responses were analyzed based on how age affects knowledge of Integrative Medicine, and how often individuals are using Precision Medicine techniques to monitor their bodies for cancer. Our study showed that on average, all participants significantly monitored their bodies for each of the five most fatal types of cancer less than once per week, (neither of the five types of cancer were monitored to be statistically different from each other). Based on this, we can set up avenues for a second study to identify communities that may be limited in knowledge or resources, so individuals can stay informed about their health. For now, we created an implementation project that distributed “goodie-bags†around Ann Arbor, filled with 5 mini-infographics on the 5 most fatal types of cancer, how to monitor your body for it, and local physicians to contact for care, or with questions.
