Pandemic heightened cancer screening disparities in Canada

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated health disparities in breast and colorectal cancer screening, a study published November 20 in JAMA Network Open found. Researchers led by Aisha Lofters, MD, PhD, from Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, found that the proportion of breast cancer screening use among people living in lower-income neighborhoods and immigrants decreased by nearly 10%. They also reported that people without family physicians had low screening uptake both before and after the pandemic. “Policymakers should investigate the value of prioritizing and investing in improving access to team-based primary care for people who are immigrants and/or with limited income,” Lofters and colleagues wrote. The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in North America saw temporary closures of cancer screening services. This created a backlog that was expected to be tied to cancer diagnosis delays. For example, a previous report suggested a backlog of more than 300,000 screening mammograms. The researchers noted that primary care physicians in Ontario were encouraged to consider prioritizing people who were underscreened or never screened for cancers when screening resumed. However, previous studies have indicated that the pandemic heightened existing health disparities such as impaired access to cancer screening services. The Lofters team investigated whether changes in screening from before the pandemic to after varied for immigrants and for people with limited i...
Source: AuntMinnie.com Headlines - Category: Radiology Authors: Tags: Womens Imaging Breast Source Type: news