January marks Cervical Cancer Awareness Month. A preventable and treatable disease, it is one that sharply highlights health care disparities, with the highest number of deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries. This reflects large inequalities due to the lack of access to national HPV vaccination, screening and cervical treatment services for women and other genders concerned and social and economic determinants in relation to universal access to health care and gender equality. of women in societies. (World Health Organization, 2024)
The journal SRHM has been publishing articles on cervical cancer eradication since its inception in 1993. In 1995, the SRHM paper “Cervical cancer: evolving prevention strategies for developing countriesby Bishop, et al. published that “80 percent of deaths occur in women in developing countries.” The paper called for the input of women, health care providers, key community leaders and policy makers to be carefully considered when planning cervical cancer control programs and concludes that “cervical cancer it is an urgent problem – after years of inactivity it requires urgent attention’ (Bishop et al. 1995). Nearly 30 years later, the number reported in 1995 has grown to nearly 90 percent. So far we know that cervical cancer is preventable and curable, as long as it is detected early and treated effectively. However, it is the 4th most common form of cancer among women worldwide, with the disease claiming the lives of more than 300,000 women in 2018.
Accelerating action to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem, in 2018 the WHO announced a global call to action to eliminate cervical cancer, highlighting the renewed political will to make eradication a reality and calling on all stakeholders to unite behind this common goal. In August 2020 the World Health Assembly adopted the Global Strategy to Eliminate Cervical Cancer, uniting states to take urgent action to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health, women’s rights and gender equality problem.
Within the SRHR community, SRHM calls for urgent action to implement and scale up cervical cancer screening and treatment programs, increase research and collaboration to develop cost-effective and innovative interventions for vaccination, screening screening, diagnosis, treatment and care of the cervix Cancer. We also ask that cervical cancer be recognized as a matter of respecting, protecting and fulfilling the rights of women and the rights of people who need these services.
SRHM has been publishing relevant research and analysis in relation to cervical cancer for the past 30 years.
Find below summaries of the 2023 papers on cervical cancer, as well as a list of further reading from the SRHM journal from the previous 5 years.
Sound, evidence-based and the right to know is critical to the decisions to be made and the actions to be taken to improve SRHR for all. Now more than ever.
2023
In “Good progress in some areas of ASRH, but much remains to be doneElsie Akwara & Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli show that although adolescent sexual and reproductive health has made significant progress worldwide, there is room for more, especially in the five key areas of cervical cancer prevention, teenage pregnancy and childbearing, of HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths, child marriage and female genital mutilation.
Published in 2023, a study by Samuel Yohannes Ayanto and colleagues finds that behavior change communication and system strengthening efforts are necessary to address gaps associated with poor implementation of cervical cancer screening in resource-limited settings such as Southern Ethiopia.
A review by Isis Umbelino-Walker and colleagues in the SRHM Journal finds that there is a need to increase awareness of female genital schistosomiasis (FGS) and its links to cervical cancer, HIV, infertility and other sexual and reproductive diseases. They emphasize that the integration of FGS prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment into SRH programs and services, including cervical cancer services, has enormous potential to strengthen the health system to reach the most marginalized women and girls with women-centered holistic health care.
2022
Establish a research program to fund sexual and reproductive health services to achieve universal health coverage in South Asia
Avishek Hazra, Arupendra Mozumdar, Iram Kamran, et al.
What we know and what we don’t know: a review mapping the available evidence and the evidence gap on adolescent sexual and reproductive health in Bangladesh
Anna Williams, Abu Sayed Hasan, Muhammad Munir Hussain, et al.
2021
Feasibility of the HPV self-sampling pathway in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal using a person-centred design approach
Swastika Shrestha, Saki Thapa, Paul Sims, Andreea Ardelean, et al.
“I’m not here, which would be bad, nor there, which would be good”: the information needs of HPV+ women. A qualitative study based on in-depth interviews and counseling sessions in Jujuy, Argentina
Lucila Szwarc, Victoria Sánchez Antelo, Melisa Paolino & Silvina Arrossi
Mapping the scientific literature on reproductive health among transgender and intersex people: a scoping review
Madina Agénor, Gabriel R. Murchison, Jesse Najarro, et al.
The cost-effectiveness of sexual and reproductive health and rights interventions in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review
Andrea Hannah Kaiser, Björn Ekman, Madeleine Dimarco & Jesper Sundewall
2020
Universal access to sexual and reproductive health services in Thailand: achievements and challenges
Warisa Panichkriangkrai, Chompoonut Topothai, Nithiwat Saenggruang, et al.
Integrating sexual and reproductive health services into primary care delivery in Arab states: status and a way forward
Tamar Kabakian-Khasholian, Harumi Quezada-Yamamoto, Ahmed Ali, et al.
