Professor Berit Andersen and Senior Researcher Pia Kirkegaard from the Department of Clinical Medicine are heading the Danish part of a five-year EU project aiming to reduce social inequality in screening for cervical cancer. The project has been granted a total of DKK 27 million from the EU’s Horizon 2020 pool.

2021.05.18 | Sabina Bjerre Hansen

Professor Berit Andersen (left), Senior Researcher Pia Kirkegaard and Postdoc Mette Tranberg (right), expect the results of the project to increase the screening participation of some of the most disadvantaged women in Europe and thus contribute to the UN’s goal of seventy per cent of all women taking part in cervical cancer screening in 2030. Photo: Helle Brandstrup Larsen.

Each year, 61,000 European women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, with a third of them subsequently dying from the disease. A targeted preventative initiative such as screening can significantly reduce this number, but in some countries the use and availability of screening for cervical cancer is not particularly high. This has a particular effect on socially disadvantaged women, who are also unfortunately those with the highest risk of developing cervical cancer, and this helps to create inequality in healthcare throughout Europe. 

The CBIG-SCREEN research project, which Berit Andersen and Pia Kirkegaard are part of, will even out this inequality. They contribute to the project by, among other things, identifying the barriers which different groups of vulnerable women experience in connection with participation in cervical cancer screening in the individual EU countries. The researchers then subsequently prepare customised models that can get the women to participate and remain in the screening programme. The vulnerable women can e.g. be women of low socioeconomic status, women with HIV, sex workers, incarcerated women and vulnerable minorities.

The goal is to translate the research results into recommendations at EU level and also into local screening programmes targeted at vulnerable women. And the researchers from Aarhus University and Randers Regional Hospital receive DKK 3.5 million for their part of the project.

Contact

Professor & Head Consultant Berit Andersen
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine and
Randers Regional Hospital, The University Research Clinic for Cancer Screening

Mobile: (+45) 20 56 74 76
Email: berand@clin.au.dk

Senior Researcher and Anthropologist Pia Kirkegaard
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine and
Randers Regional Hospital, The Department of Public Health Programmes
Tel.: (+45) 784 2 02 61
Email: pia.kirkegaard@clin.au.dk

The coverage is based on a press release from Randers Regional Hospital.

Read more about the project on the project website: www.cbig-screen.eu