Seen as an almost fatal disease half a century ago, cancer has become a treatable disease for many, with a growing proportion of cancer patients living for more than five years after a diagnosis. Recent estimates suggest that there are now 2 million people living past a diagnosis of cancer in UK and over half of these have had breast, colorectal or prostate cancer. As the five-year survival rates for all cancers combined has reached 50%, the long-term effects of cancer and its treatments, both physical and psychological, are becoming more relevant. While many people surviving at least 5 years from diagnosis report few or no problems, 20-30% report physical problems, poorer quality of life, psychological distress, sexual problems, problems with social relationships and financial concerns. Although there is an enormous range of resources available to people with cancer, most are aimed at supporting people through the diagnosis and active treatment phases. There has been relatively little research, and few resources, to help survivors to deal with life beyond the active treatment phase. Our research with cancer survivors demonstrates the need for internet resources to support the growing number of people living with cancer long-term. The proposed project will follow on from a Cancer Research UK funded study about the use of primary care services and unmet needs of long-term cancer survivors. As part of that research, 40 people who had survived at least 5 years from diagnosis of breast, colorectal or prostate cancer were interviewed about what it is like to live beyond cancer. The interview study was conducted using qualitative methods developed by a group of social scientists in the Health experiences research group Oxford that have been developed and refined over 10 years and based on rigorous social science research methodology. These data will be combined with interview recordings from long-term survivors of other types of cancer who participated in previous HTO studies, and re-analysed for the purpose of writing 20-25 summaries for HTO on the issues that are most important to cancer survivors. The topic summaries will be illustrated with clips from the interviews in video, audio or text format. The topic summaries will be drafted by the researcher, checked by another researcher who will familiarise themselves with all the data, and by an appropriately qualified member of an expert advisory panel. The panel will include cancer survivors, social scientists and health and social care professionals. The researcher will identify, in consultation with the advisory panel, a list of respected national and local organisations and websites that provide other kinds of information and support, for inclusion on the site. Before our project partners, DIPEx, publish the material on the HTO website we offer a couple of pilot focus groups to ensure that the new site reflects the experiences of cancer survivors and that we have correctly identified the issues that are important to a broader range of cancer survivors than those included in the original interview sample. Audio tape recorded focus group interviews would be conducted with long-term cancer survivors and used to identify unmet information and support needs. Participants would then be invited to explore the 'draft' website and complete a brief questionnaire which would cover whether the site addressed their unmet needs, whether the issues that they think are important were covered, whether perspectives akin to their own had been covered in the topic summaries, if they had learnt anything new and whether they would recommend the site to others. The new section of HTO on living beyond cancer will be intended primarily as a resource for other people who are living beyond cancer, their family and friends, and will also be used to educate health and social care professionals.

AP4L is a 3-year program of interdisciplinary research, centring on the online privacy & vulnerability challenges that people face when going through major life transitions. Our central goal is to develop privacy-by-design technologies to protect & empower people during these transitions. Our work is driven by a narrative that will be familiar to most people. Life often "just happens", leading people to overlook their core privacy and online safety needs. For instance, somebody undergoing cancer treatment may be less likely to finesse their privacy setting on social media when discussing the topic. Similarly, an individual undergoing gender transition may be unaware of how their online activities in the past may shape the treatment into the future. This project will build the scientific and theoretical foundations to explore these challenges, as well as design and evaluate three core innovations that will address the identified challenges. AP4L will introduce a step-change, making online safety and privacy as painless and seamless as possible during life transitions To ensure a breadth of understanding, we will apply these concepts to four very different transitions through a series of carefully designed co-creation activities, devised as part of a stakeholder workshop held in Oct'21. These are relationship breakdowns; LBGT+ transitions or transitioning gender; entering/ leaving employment in the Armed Forces; and developing a serious illness or becoming terminally ill. Such transitions can significantly change privacy considerations in unanticipated or counter-intuitive ways. For example, previously enabled location-sharing with a partner may lead to stalking after a breakup; 'coming out' may need careful management across diverse audiences (e.g - friends, grandparents) on social media. We will study these transitions, following a creative security approach, bringing together interdisciplinary expertise in Computer Science, Law, Business, Psychology and Criminology. We will systematise this knowledge, and develop fundamental models of the nature of transitions and their interplay with online lives. These models will inform the development of a suite of technologies and solutions that will help people navigate significant life transitions through adaptive, personalised privacy-enhanced interventions that meet the needs of each individual and bolster their resilience, autonomy, competence and connection. The suite will comprise: (1) "Risk Playgrounds", which will build resilience by helping users to explore potentially risky interactions of life transitions with privacy settings across their digital footprint in safe ways (2) "Transition Guardians", which will provide real-time protection for users during life transitions. (3) "Security Bubbles", which will promote connection by bringing people together who can help each other (or who need to work together) during one person's life transition, whilst providing additional guarantees to safeguard everyone involved. In achieving this vision, and as evidenced by £686K of in-kind contributions, we will work with 26 core partners spanning legal enforcement agencies (e.g., Surrey Police), tech companies (e.g., Facebook, IBM), support networks (e.g., LGBT Foundation, Revenge Porn Helpline) and associated organisations (e.g., Ofcom, Mastercard, BBC). Impact will be delivered through various activities including a specially commissioned BBC series on online life transitions to share knowledge with the public; use of the outputs of our projects by companies & social platforms (e.g., by incorporating into their products, & by designing their products to take into consideration the findings of our project) & targeted workshops to enable knowledge exchange with partners & stakeholders.