IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v183y2017icp48-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Controversies about cervical cancer screening: A qualitative study of Roma women's (non)participation in cervical cancer screening in Romania

Author

Listed:
  • Andreassen, Trude
  • Weiderpass, Elisabete
  • Nicula, Florian
  • Suteu, Ofelia
  • Itu, Andreea
  • Bumbu, Minodora
  • Tincu, Aida
  • Ursin, Giske
  • Moen, Kåre

Abstract

Romania has Europe's highest incidence and mortality of cervical cancer. While a free national cervical cancer-screening programme has been in operation since 2012, participation in the programme is low, particularly in minority populations. The aim of this study was to explore Roma women's (non)participation in the programme from women's own perspectives and those of healthcare providers and policy makers. We carried out fieldwork for a period of 125 days in 2015/16 involving 144 study participants in Cluj and Bucharest counties. Fieldwork entailed participant observation, qualitative interviewing and focus group discussions. A striking finding was that screening providers and Roma women had highly different takes on the national screening programme. We identified four fundamental questions about which there was considerable disagreement between them: whether a free national screening programme existed in the first place, whether Roma women were meant to be included in the programme if it did, whether Roma women wanted to take part in screening, and to what degree screening participation would really benefit women's health. On the background of insights from actor-network theory, the article discusses to what degree the programme could be said to speak to the interest of its intended Roma public, and considers the controversies in light of the literature on patient centred care and user involvement in health care. The paper contributes to the understanding of the health and health-related circumstances of the largest minority in Europe. It also problematizes the use of the concept of “barriers” in research into participation in cancer screening, and exemplifies how user involvement can potentially help transform and improve screening programmes.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreassen, Trude & Weiderpass, Elisabete & Nicula, Florian & Suteu, Ofelia & Itu, Andreea & Bumbu, Minodora & Tincu, Aida & Ursin, Giske & Moen, Kåre, 2017. "Controversies about cervical cancer screening: A qualitative study of Roma women's (non)participation in cervical cancer screening in Romania," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 48-55.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:183:y:2017:i:c:p:48-55
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.04.040
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617302708
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.04.040?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eardley, Anne & Elkind, Andrea Knopf & Spencer, Brenda & Hobbs, Patricia & Pendleton, Laura L. & Haran, Dave, 1985. "Attendance for cervical screening--Whose problem?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 20(9), pages 955-962, January.
    2. Fésüs, Gabriella & Östlin, Piroska & McKee, Martin & Ádány, Róza, 2012. "Policies to improve the health and well-being of Roma people: The European experience," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 25-32.
    3. Markovic, Milica & Kesic, Vesna & Topic, Lidija & Matejic, Bojana, 2005. "Barriers to cervical cancer screening: A qualitative study with women in Serbia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(12), pages 2528-2535, December.
    4. de Freitas, Cláudia & Martin, Graham, 2015. "Inclusive public participation in health: Policy, practice and theoretical contributions to promote the involvement of marginalised groups in healthcare," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 31-39.
    5. Todorova, Irina L.G. & Baban, Adriana & Balabanova, Dina & Panayotova, Yulia & Bradley, Janet, 2006. "Providers' constructions of the role of women in cervical cancer screening in Bulgaria and Romania," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 776-787, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ingrid Babinská & Monika Halánová & Zuzana Kalinová & Lenka Čechová & Lýdia Čisláková & Andrea Madarasová Gecková, 2017. "Prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis Infection and Its Association with Sexual Behaviour and Alcohol Use in the Population Living in Separated and Segregated Roma Settlements in Eastern Slovakia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-13, December.
    2. Andrej Belak & Andrea Madarasova Geckova & Jitse P. van Dijk & Sijmen A. Reijneveld, 2018. "Why don’t segregated Roma do more for their health? An explanatory framework from an ethnographic study in Slovakia," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 63(9), pages 1123-1131, December.
    3. Belak, Andrej & Filakovska Bobakova, Daniela & Madarasova Geckova, Andrea & van Dijk, Jitse P. & Reijneveld, Sijmen A., 2020. "Why don't health care frontline professionals do more for segregated Roma? Exploring mechanisms supporting unequal care practices," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    4. Quintal, Carlota & Antunes, Micaela, 2022. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, when are inequalities higher, after all? Analysis of breast and cervical cancer screening in 30 European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Trude Andreassen & Adriana Melnic & Rejane Figueiredo & Kåre Moen & Ofelia Şuteu & Florian Nicula & Giske Ursin & Elisabete Weiderpass, 2018. "Attendance to cervical cancer screening among Roma and non-Roma women living in North-Western region of Romania," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 63(5), pages 609-619, June.
    2. Escobar-Ballesta, M. & García-Ramírez, M. & De Freitas, C., 2018. "Taking stock of Roma health policies in Spain: Lessons for health governance," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(4), pages 444-451.
    3. Suhailah Ali & Heather Skirton & Maria T. Clark & Craig Donaldson, 2017. "Integrative review of cervical cancer screening in Western Asian and Middle Eastern Arab countries," Nursing & Health Sciences, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), pages 414-426, December.
    4. Evangeline I. Chirayil & Claire L. Thompson & Sue Burney, 2014. "Predicting Human Papilloma Virus Vaccination and Pap Smear Screening Intentions Among Young Singaporean Women Using the Theory of Planned Behavior," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(4), pages 21582440145, October.
    5. Raluca Dania Todor & Gabriel Bratucu & Marius Alexandru Moga & Adina Nicoleta Candrea & Luigi Geo Marceanu & Costin Vlad Anastasiu, 2021. "Challenges in the Prevention of Cervical Cancer in Romania," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-14, February.
    6. Viola Sallay & Tamás Martos & Lilla Lucza & Orsolya Papp-Zipernovszky & Márta Csabai, 2023. "Health Psychology Services for People in Disadvantaged Regions of Hungary: Experiences from the Primary Health Care Development Model Program," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-15, February.
    7. Sowa, P. Marcin & Butler, James R.G. & Connelly, Luke B., 2014. "Unmet medical needs and health care accessibility in seven countries of Eastern Europe," MPRA Paper 75619, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Andrej Belak & Zuzana Dankulincova Veselska & Andrea Madarasova Geckova & Jitse P. van Dijk & Sijmen A. Reijneveld, 2017. "How Well Do Health-Mediation Programs Address the Determinants of the Poor Health Status of Roma? A Longitudinal Case Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-18, December.
    9. Daniela E. Miranda & Manuel Garcia-Ramirez & Fabricio E. Balcazar & Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar, 2019. "A Community-Based Participatory Action Research for Roma Health Justice in a Deprived District in Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-22, October.
    10. Anna Gottschlich & Pamela Ochoa & Alvaro Rivera-Andrade & Christian S. Alvarez & Carlos Mendoza Montano & Claudia Camel & Rafael Meza, 2020. "Barriers to cervical cancer screening in Guatemala: a quantitative analysis using data from the Guatemala Demographic and Health Surveys," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 65(2), pages 217-226, March.
    11. Stephen Hinchliffe & Mark A. Jackson & Katrina Wyatt & Anne E. Barlow & Manuela Barreto & Linda Clare & Michael H. Depledge & Robin Durie & Lora E. Fleming & Nick Groom & Karyn Morrissey & Laura Salis, 2018. "Healthy publics: enabling cultures and environments for health," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-10, December.
    12. Evelina Pappa & Simela Chatzikonstantinidou & George Chalkiopoulos & Angelos Papadopoulos & Dimitris Niakas, 2015. "Health-Related Quality of Life of the Roma in Greece: The Role of Socio-Economic Characteristics and Housing Conditions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-13, June.
    13. Tonya Moen Hansen & Knut Stavem & Kim Rand, 2023. "Completing the time trade-off with respondents who are older, in poorer health or with an immigrant background in an EQ-5D-5L valuation study," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 24(6), pages 877-884, August.
    14. Dunn, Richard A. & Tan, Andrew K.G., 2010. "Cervical cancer screening in Malaysia: Are targeted interventions necessary?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(6), pages 1089-1093, September.
    15. Maria Goddard & Peter Smith, 1998. "Equity of access to health care," Working Papers 032cheop, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    16. János Sándor & Zsigmond Kósa & Klára Boruzs & Julianna Boros & Ildikó Tokaji & Martin McKee & Róza Ádány, 2017. "The decade of Roma Inclusion: did it make a difference to health and use of health care services?," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 62(7), pages 803-815, September.
    17. Balázs Ádám & Szabolcs Lovas & Róza Ádány, 2020. "Use of Genomic Information in Health Impact Assessment is Yet to Come: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-13, December.
    18. Lovell, Sarah & Kearns, Robin A. & Friesen, Wardlow, 2007. "Sociocultural barriers to cervical screening in South Auckland, New Zealand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 138-150, July.
    19. Haldane, Victoria & Singh, Shweta R. & Srivastava, Aastha & Chuah, Fiona L.H. & Koh, Gerald C.H. & Chia, Kee Seng & Perel, Pablo & Legido-Quigley, Helena, 2020. "Community involvement in the development and implementation of chronic condition programmes across the continuum of care in high- and upper-middle income countries: A systematic review," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(4), pages 419-437.
    20. Dr. Saadat Parhizkar & Dr. Latiffah Abdul Latiff & Dr. Mojgan Afshari, 2013. "Disseminating Cervical Cancer Knowledge: Impact of a Public Seminar," International Journal of Learning and Development, Macrothink Institute, vol. 3(1), pages 203-211, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:183:y:2017:i:c:p:48-55. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.