July marks Ethnic Minority Cancer Awareness Month. At Jo’s, we know that women from minority ethnic communities are less likely to attend their cervical screening. Find out about what we’re doing to change this – this month and beyond.

Women from ethnic minority groups and cervical screening attendance

We know from previous research that women within minority ethnic communities are less likely than white women to attend their cervical screening. Our own 2018 research showed that 56.1% of South East Asian women in Manchester delayed their invitation to cervical screening, with 15.8% delaying by more than three years.

This data also highlights a lack of knowledge about signs of cervical cancer and what screening is for. Interestingly, twice as many Black, Asian and minority ethnic women as white women said that better knowledge about the cervical screening process – and why it’s so important – would encourage them to attend (30% against 14%).

Data

One issue we face is that cancer data and cervical screening uptake is not reported-on routinely by ethnicity. This means it can be really hard to know where to target interventions. Along with many in the cancer community, we have been calling for this for many years. It’s encouraging to see the recently-published Women’s Health Plan commit to “better access to data on protected characteristics” to help improve screening uptake.

Supporting all communities

Making an informed choice about screening is much easier to do when you have access to information that’s in the right format for you. In order to support as many women and people with a cervix as possible, we’ve set up a translation option at the top of the Jo’s website – you can use this to translate the entire website into another language, so that you can access all of our information in a way that works for you.

One of our most popular YouTube videos – Your Guide to Cervical Screening – provides information about what the test is, who is invited and what happens when you attend. It can be used for outreach sessions, for GPs to talk to patients, inclusion on websites and reminders sent to patients. Did you know it’s available to watch in 13 languages? We also have a version coming soon in Ukranian, so stay tuned.

We want women of colour to see Jo’s as a place for them, and to feel assured that we are here to support them through the cervical screening process and beyond. We’re determined to develop and improve our information and support services to help as many people as possible, and always welcome feedback on how we can do this better.

If there’s anything you think we’re missing, please do get in touch >