Wealth and race linked to cancer screening rates in UK women

MedWire News: Results of a UK study show that women who undergo breast cancer screening are more likely to own their own house or car than those who do not, while those who undergo cervical screening are more likely to be White and well-educated than those who did not have a smear test.

"The challenge for the screening programmes is to make sure our services reach all parts of the population so we can reduce health inequalities,” commented study researcher Professor Juliette Patnick, from the National Health Services Screening Programme in Sheffield.

“On the one hand we need to look at where mammography is available to make it easy for women to get to their appointments without having to travel too far; while with cervical screening, we need to ensure we're providing information in an accessible way so all women can make informed decisions about whether or not to take up their invitation."

The team of researchers, led by Dr Kath Moser (University of Oxford), asked 3185 UK women, aged between 40 and 74 years, if they had ever undergone breast or cervical screening.

Results showed that 93% of the participants had received at least one mammogram and 91% had undergone a cervical smear. However, 3% of women aged 53–74 years had not undergone screening for either type of cancer.

Women who lived in households with one car were 1.7 times more likely to have undergone breast screening, and those who lived in households with two or more cars were 2.6 times more likely to have undergone breast screening than those who did not own a car.

Furthermore, women who had a mortgage or owned their house outright were also more likely to have had mammograms than those who rented their home.

However, breast cancer screening was not significantly associated with ethnicity, education, occupation, or region.

In contrast, ethnicity was the most common predictor of cervical screening uptake. Indeed, White British women were 2.2 times more likely to have had a smear test than women of other ethnicities.

Although uptake of cervical screening was also associated with greater educational attainment, there was no relationship between cervical screening and ownership of cars or houses, or region.

Dr Moser and team summarise in the British Medical Journal: “Some inequalities exist in the reported use of screening, which differ by screening type; indicators of wealth were important for breast screening and ethnicity for cervical screening.”

They recommend: “The routine collection within general practice of additional sociodemographic information would aid monitoring of inequalities in screening coverage and inform policies to correct them.”