Cancer survivorship and the significance of an integrated diachronic life course perspective

Standardised healthcare is primarily focused on remediation and delivered episodically through costly and fragmented healthcare systems. Such an approach is untenable, given the diversity and complexity of peoples' healthcare needs, increasing prevalence of chronic disease and existing heath inequities. A life course perspective fundamentally challenges our current understanding of healthcare and has great potential to promote innovation in healthcare practice, systems and policy. However, the way that health develops and manifests across the life course is a highly complex process underpinned by a plethora of causal antecedents, consequences and interdependencies that have yet to be adequately captured and articulated in current life course frameworks. The field of cancer survivorship and its recent rise to prominence provides a highly relevant and compelling case example to inform development and refinement of existing life course frameworks. Cancer survivorship exemplifies what can be described as an integrated diachronic life course perspective, which serves as a conceptual framework to enhance our understanding of health development across the life course and guide healthcare practice, systems and policy to meet the increasingly complex healthcare needs of current and future generations.