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Every year, 311,000 women die of cervical cancer globally, a disease which is preventable and treatable. Pap-testing should be part of a comprehensive approach to tackling cervical cancer; however, barriers to pap-testing do exist and migration may present additional barriers. In 2018, 2.3 million overseas Filipino workers were recorded and uptake of pap-testing for this group is low. The study aims to understand barriers and enablers to screening for overseas Filipino workers, which is essential to improve uptake of pap-testing for this population.

Embedded in a mixed-methods study, an exploratory qualitative study was conducted with Web-based, in-depth interviews (N = 8) with female overseas Filipino workers, mostly domestic workers, based in Kuwait, Qatar, Singapore and Hong Kong. Results were analysed using thematic analysis. A socio-ecological conceptual framework was used to explore barriers to uptake of pap-testing.

Barriers to pap-testing were cognitive factors, such as limited knowledge and fear of the outcome of pap-testing, as well as cultural and structural barriers. Findings revealed structural contexts not conducive to pap-testing, including difficulty navigating the health-care system, poverty, difficult employment circumstances and the overriding need to provide financially for family and children in the Philippines.

This study explored barriers to pap-testing with a hard-to-reach group, who are underrepresented in the literature. Barriers to pap-testing were embedded in structural barriers, resulting in health inequalities. Host and sending countries benefit from overseas Filipino workers and have a responsibility to care for their health and well-being, and should strive to tackle these structural factors.

To identify women's sources of information about cervical cancer screening, information which women report receiving during Pap consultations, information they would like to receive, and the relationships between perceived information needs, personal characteristics and information sources.

Logistic regression analysis of questionnaire data obtained from 408 screen‐eligible women resident in east central UK.

Programme documentation and the Pap consultation represent the main sources of information, although a sizeable proportion rely on other sources (e.g. mass media). The range and frequency of information services which women report receiving during their Pap consultations are variable, and around one‐sixth of women report never receiving information. “Always wanting information” is predictable from subject characteristics, which do not map precisely, owing to the variation in frequency of information being supplied. Age and women's main sources of information are significant predictors of perceived information shortfall, and such shortfalls are associated with dissatisfaction with the screening programme.

Covers all aspects of women's attitudes towards satisfactory or unsatisfactory availability of external information in the matter of screening for cervical cancer in the UK.

Mortality rates of cervical cancer are high amongst Filipino women; however, uptake of cervical screening is low. The purpose of this paper is to identify known barriers and facilitators to cervical screening for Filipino migrant women.

A systematic approach was adopted for the search, data extraction, critical appraisal and synthesis processes of this review. Eight electronic databases were searched. Studies published in peer review journals in English between 1995 and 2019 were reviewed.

In total, 20 relevant studies were identified. Studies were heterogeneous in design and focus and mostly conducted in the USA. A complex multifactorial picture of barriers to cervical screening was identified, which included: demographic, cognitive, access, health-care provider and cultural factors. None of the studies incorporated all factors.

This review demonstrates the complexity and multifactorial characteristic of cervical screening for Filipino migrant women. To increase uptake of screening, barriers to cervical screening for Filipino migrant women need to be fully understood. Future research should be conducted in different locations, focussing on multiple factors.

Aggregation of barriers and facilitators for Asian women combined tends to ignore cultural differences between groups. This review synthesises the existing but scarce literature to identify known barriers and facilitators to cervical screening for this specific population of Filipino migrant women.

The purpose of this paper is to gain an in-depth understanding of beliefs, attitudes, and reasons for decision making about colorectal cancer (CRC) screening among South Asian (SA) immigrants.

Six focus groups conducted in English, Punjabi, and Urdu were held with 42 SA immigrants, 50-74 years old and at average risk for CRC, from November 2012 to May 2013. All focus group discussions were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. Data analysis used an inductive and systematic approach employing constant comparison techniques.

Three dominant themes emerged. Beliefs and attitudes towards cancer and screening represented SA immigrant’s perceptions that early detection was beneficial; screening was not necessary in the absence of symptoms; cancer was scary; and the loss of previously established bowel practices upon immigration as potential risks for CRC. Knowledge and awareness focused on unscreened participants’ cancer stories; screened participants’ knowledge of CRC, risk factors, and screening; experiential learning from focus groups; and screened participants’ strategies to promote screening. Support and accessibility concentrated on physician support and responsibility to provide information, explanation, and recommend screening to facilitate access.

Findings provide novel insights on socio-cultural context, beliefs, and barriers to CRC screening among SA immigrants. Culturally appropriate community-based strategies included story-telling, the use of social networks, and greater physician engagement. Enhancing collaborative partnerships with physicians and public health may minimize structural barriers and reduce health disparities. Future research could explore effectiveness of outreach strategies including these collaborations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore incarcerated women's awareness, beliefs, and experiences with human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and vaccination.

Researchers conducted focus groups with 45 incarcerated women in an urban Midwestern US jail to assess how women talked about their Papanicolaou (Pap) test screening and abnormal Pap test follow-up experiences. Some focus group questions specifically assessed individual awareness, beliefs, and experiences with HPV infection and vaccination. Based on these data, the authors described participants’ awareness of HPV, as well as used open coding to ultimately extract themes related to beliefs and experiences with HPV infection and vaccine.

While all 45 participants reported experiencing an abnormal Pap test event within the last five years, only two-thirds of participants (n=30) reported having heard of the HPV infection. Several themes emerged from the analysis of the data: the women's beliefs about cause and severity of HPV; frustration with age requirements of the vaccine; varied experiences with vaccinations for themselves and their children; the impact of media exposure on knowledge; and desire for more HPV infection and vaccine information.

Incarcerated women's awareness and limited experiences with HPV infection and vaccination may be a barrier to adequate screening and cervical cancer prevention. This study has implications for the development of cervical health education for this high-risk group of women, who are four to five times as likely to have cervical cancer as non-incarcerated women.

Cervical cancer (CC) is one of the most important health issues faced by women worldwide. The purpose of this study is to identify Jordanian women’s knowledge, barriers and measures pertaining to risk factors and screening choices of CC (Pap smear tests).

This study applied a cross sectional design by collecting data from a convenient sample of 200 women between 20 and 70 years of age in health and public centers in Jordan. Data was then analyzed using the descriptive statistical tools of SPSS, version 21.

The findings revealed that 55.5% of the participants had no information about the Pap smear, and 75% did not know the risk factors. Moreover, 50% of the sample did not know where to take the test, and 50% reported a lack of encouragement from the husband to undertake the test. More than half of the participants (56.5%) expressed fear that cervical screening would be a painful examination even though they reported not having any previous experience with the test.

Based on these findings, public education about CC screening is essential, including advertising and a campaign similar to the breast cancer awareness programs in Jordan, as a way of encouraging early screening to improve the health of women.

Gynecological cancers are preventable and treatable diseases in case of early diagnosis. However, lack of knowledge is one of the factors preventing women from benefiting from early diagnosis. Increasing women's knowledge of gynecological cancers contributes to improving the health of both women and the community. The purpose of this research study was to determine the affecting factors and knowledge level of Turkish women-related gynecological cancer prevention.

This was a cross-sectional descriptive study and was carried out at a state hospital's outpatient clinic between May and June 2019. The sampling included 496 women who are not diagnosed with gynecological cancer in the individual or in the family. Data were collected using the personal information form and Gynecological Cancer Prevention Information Scale (GCPIS). Data were evaluated using the SPSS 22.0 software program. Frequencies, mean and standard deviation were used for the descriptive variables. For the data that met the parametric conditions, those with two groups were analyzed using independent samples t-tests and those with more than two groups were analyzed using F-test.

In this study, the GCPIS total mean score of women was found 16.22 ± 8.21 (min: 0, max: 35). A statistically significant difference was found between the women's level of knowledge according to the age group of the participants, education level, economic status perception, regular pap-smear test, regular vulva examination and getting information about prevention from gynecologic cancers (p < 0.05).

This study was conducted on a group of Turkish women and cannot be generalized to other cultures.

This study can be beneficial for determining the Turkish women's knowledge levels about gynecological cancers of women and for providing data for health education programs planning to be created.

The data of this study can be used to improve women's knowledge and examination skills of gynecological cancers. Thus, the quality of life of women can be improved.

Healthcare professionals can play vital roles in presenting needed knowledge about gynecological cancers and raising awareness in women. It is extremely important for women to be informed about gynecological cancers for prevention of gynecological cancers and health improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to determine which socioecological factors encourage rural women to participate in mammographies rather than avoiding taking the test.

The study mainly uses data from the 2007 Rural Households Evaluation Survey (ENCEL-2007). These crossover data are analyzed using the framework proposed in the Spatial-Interaction Model of Mammography Use (SIMMU), through a three-level logistic regression model to examine the likelihood that a woman will choose to participate in a mammography.

At the woman-household level, the completion of the Pap smear and the asset index is the strongest determinant of mammography participation. Obtaining preventive medicine services or being enrolled in the Popular Insurance System prevent women from undergoing screening. At the interpersonal level, the probability of screening use decreases with lower social coverage. At the intermediate level, availability of health centers is negatively related to the use of screening.

The study fails to take into account the fact that women’s propensity to have a mammography may vary over time relatively to life changes. Moreover, findings were restricted to women ages from 40 to 49 and limited due to the lack of published data or data quality issues.

The results of this research can give health planners, policymakers and social marketers a platform for how to approach social change and promote the cancer screening health behavior through the marketing mix (price, place, promotion and product) in the design of their programs.

In addition to be informative and persuasive with people to change their behavior, this paper also seeks to provide a direction for using commercial marketing tools through social marketing to “sell” the health behavior. Due to target population variation, this paper addresses the health behavior change strategy by audience segmentation, regarded as essential to successful health communication campaigns.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the experience in a Mexican private higher education institution of implementing credit-bearing student placements and projects (interventions) in organizations, as a mandatory part of the curriculum for all undergraduates. The university-wide program, called professional application projects (PAPs) has been running for ten years and has two main aims: to develop work-based professional skills in students and to deliver services to organizations and communities of diverse types. All undergraduate students get involved in PAP when they have completed 70 percent of the required program credits. This amounts to approximately 2,000 students per year. The paper reports the results of an investigation into the learning outcomes of PAPs in the Business School, which comprises six undergraduate programs, a center for liaisons with businesses, and a center for management of technology and innovation.

Qualitative analysis of students’ final reports of their PAP experience, from the period 2015-2016 was done.

The report analyses and clusters the main categories of learning outcomes reported by students. The analysis shows that the PAP experience has been mostly successful in terms of student learning.

There has been scarce reporting of the results of PAP at the reported institution, or of other similar experiences of work-based learning in Mexico on this scale.

Reproductive health is critically important for women and yet minority women in Canada are less likely to use preventive health care services. The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the health behaviours of this minority population and, in particular, identify barriers to accessing reproductive health care services.

This study qualitatively analysed data from focus group discussions with 22 Muslim immigrant women in Ottawa, Canada.

The theme of modesty emerged as one of the main barriers in the health seeking behaviour of Muslim immigrant women when it comes to reproductive health and, therefore, the gender of the physician was very important. Focus group participants also discussed a preference for family physicians from the same ethnic and cultural background. Adaptation, or the need to be flexible if there was no alternative to a male doctor, emerged as a theme throughout the focus groups. Emergencies were frequently cited as a reason to adapt.

The findings reveal that while religious rules do play a predominant role in the health behaviour of Muslim immigrant women, communication by health care providers, government and health agencies can offer strategies to increase the uptake of preventive reproductive care.

This study offers unique insights into the very personal experience of reproductive health care through rich, qualitative data. Given the impact of culture and religion on perceptions and practices, in particular related to reproductive health, this study contributes to more effective communication strategies with Muslim women.