Improving cervical cancer screening, follow-up, and outcomes in incarcerated women
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Citation
Abstract
In the nation with the highest incarceration rate in the world, young women are currently the fastest-growing population with criminal legal system involvement in the United States. Incarcerated persons face extreme systemic vulnerabilities and are often victim to numerous injustices compared to the general population. Those in the criminal legal system also face an increased burden of chronic and communicable diseases, complicated by decreased access to medical care and increased risk factors that compound incidence of preventable diseases. Of these trends, the higher rates of cervical dysplasia and cervical cancer in female-bodied persons involved in the US incarceration system is especially troublesome considering the advancements in screening and prevention in the past twenty years.
The increased incidence of cervical dysplasia and cervical cancer is a multifactorial issue that includes shared risk factors for disease development, barriers to healthcare access and affordability, lower health literacy scores and poor follow-up rates on abnormal results. With the increased burden of disease with worse morbidity and mortality, efforts are needed to improve the poor outcomes of cervical cancer in the populations of incarcerated women who are most affected by this preventable disease. Since the accessibility of the HPV vaccine and availability of regular screening modalities for cervical dysplasia, the rates of cervical cancer have decreased significantly in the first world. In order to address the World Health Organization’s goal to eliminate cervical cancer by 2030, the United States must focus on its populations most at risk of poor outcomes of this disease.