Session: Advancing Health Equity for Adolescents and Young Adults (AYA) with Cancer: The Role of (Advanced) Technology (Society for Social Work and Research 28th Annual Conference - Recentering & Democratizing Knowledge: The Next 30 Years of Social Work Science)

Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) living with a cancer diagnosis are an age-specific population (15-39 years old) who face unique psychosocial challenges, such as onco-fertility, financial distress, and major disruptions to academic or occupational trajectories. As a result, AYAs with cancer are more likely to have compromised biopsychosocial outcomes than their younger or older peers; and are more susceptable to health and mental health disparities. Approximately 90,000 AYAs are newly diagnosed with cancer, with an estimated population of 650,000 survivors of AYA cancer in the United States in 2023. Social workers are the largest mental health workforce in the U.S. cancer care system, and are at the forefront of addressing health and mental health disparities among the AYA oncology population. Among the multi-faceted efforts of advancing health equity for AYAs with cancer, oncology social workers and researchers have innovatively integrated (advanced) technologies into oncology social work practices. These efforts have resulted in promising models of care or treatment options that are available and easily accessible to AYAs with cancer. Through the lens of health equity, this symposium includes three presentations that focus on the identification, implementation, and evaluation of technology-assisted service approaches for the AYA cancer population. The first presentation is a systematic review and meta-analysis that examined all technology-assisted psychosocial interventions for pediatric and AYAs with cancer. While research-supported psychosocial interventions for pediatric and AYA cancer patients/survivors are available, few attention has been focused on technology-assisted interventions for this unique population. The findings from the first presentation will lay important foundations in our understanding of technology-assisted treatment options in supporting AYA cancer patients/survivors' psychosocial needs. The second presentation is a pilot randomized controlled trial that evaluated a computer-based cognitive behavioral therapy (C-CBT) for depression and anxiety among AYAs with cancer. C-CBT has major potentials to enable research-supported mental health treatment available and accessible to AYAs with cancer who may not have the time or (financial) resources to receive in-person therapy. The findings from the second presentation will share important feasibility and acceptability data of a novel C-CBT approach for AYAs with cancer, as well as demonstrate preliminary efficacy of a C-CBT treatment platform to alleviate depression and anxiety in the AYA oncology population. The third/final presentation is a clinical study that examined the feasibility and acceptability of an AI-enabled distress monitoring tool among AYAs with cancer. Despite the widely-accepted importance of distress screening and monitoring, fewer than one-third of cancer patients receive protocol-adherent distress screening, and this rate is even lower among AYAs with cancer. Common distress screening methods, e.g., paper-an-pencil or electronic administration, often disrupt the busy workflow of cancer care and are likely to cause measurement fatigue with repeated administration. This presentation shares a mobile app that reconceptulizes distress monitoring. Using AI and advancements in speech data science, the app collects 90 seconds of patient-cell "conversations" and generates valid depression and anxiety scores. The findings of this presentation demonstrated the significant potentials of advanced technologies in advancing distress monitoring among AYAs with cancer.