Abstract B39: The Health of Women (HOW) Study: A novel approach to the cohort study

Purpose: The purpose of the Health of Women (HOW) Study is to examine risk factors for breast cancer and factors that may contribute to long-term survivorship through an innovative online system that allows for participant engagement and data sharing with the research community. Methods: The HOW Study is conducted through online and mobile phone platforms. Questionnaires are developed in our custom built survey tool and are available for completion on the study9s website. The system allows for automated skip patterns within questionnaires and collection of data directly into a SQL database. The cohort is open to anyone 18 years or older; recruitment sources include the Love Army of Women and the general public. Participants will be given the opportunity to pose questions they would like to see answered. The HOW Study is also a novel resource allowing outside researchers to submit questions to be incorporated into HOW questionnaires and creating a data sharing platform that facilitates researcher access to HOW data after an application process. Results: The HOW Study launched October 2012 and currently has 42,600 participants from across the nation and the globe. We have released 1 baseline questionnaire and 4 breast cancer-specific questionnaires to capture diagnosis and treatment with greater than 90% completion rate for each. Conclusion: We have shown that we can recruit and engage participants in an online cohort study. We believe that this study has the potential to transform epidemiologic research by engaging both participants and the research community. Our second baseline questionnaire will launch in the summer of 2013, which will give us the opportunity to increase enrollment and assess retention. Citation Format: Susan Love, Christine Fischetti, Jane Sullivan-Halley, Jessica Clague, Leslie Bernstein. The Health of Women (HOW) Study: A novel approach to the cohort study. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2013 Oct 27-30; National Harbor, MD. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Can Prev Res 2013;6(11 Suppl): Abstract nr B39.