RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Inequitable access to personalized breast cancer screening and prevention may compound racial and ethnic disparities in outcomes. The Breast Cancer Personalized Risk Assessment, Education and Prevention (B-PREP) program, located within the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) Comprehensive Breast Health Center (BHC), provides care to patients at high risk for developing breast cancer. We sought to characterize the differences between BWH primary care patients referred specifically to B-PREP for risk evaluation and those referred to the BHC for benign breast conditions. Through interviews with primary care clinicians, we sought to explore contributors to potentially inequitable B-PREP referral patterns. METHODS: We used electronic health record data and the B-PREP clinical database to identify patients referred by primary care clinicians to the BHC or B-PREP between 2017 and 2020. We examined associations with likelihood of referral to B-PREP for risk assessment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine primary care clinicians from six clinics to explore referral patterns. RESULTS: Of 1789 patients, 78.0% were referred for benign breast conditions, and 21.5% for risk assessment. In multivariable analyses, Black individuals were less likely to be referred for risk than for benign conditions (OR 0.38, 95% CI:0.23-0.63) as were those with Medicaid/Medicare (OR 0.72, 95% CI:0.53-0.98; OR 0.52, 95% CI:0.27-0.99) and those whose preferred language was not English (OR 0.26, 95% CI:0.12-0.57). Interviewed clinicians described inconsistent approaches to risk assessment and variable B-PREP awareness. CONCLUSIONS: In this single-site evaluation, among individuals referred by primary care clinicians for specialized breast care, Black, publicly-insured patients, and those whose preferred language was not English were less likely to be referred for risk assessment. Larger studies are needed to confirm these findings. Interventions to standardize breast cancer risk assessment in primary care may improve equity.
Assuntos
Neoplasias da Mama , Estados Unidos/epidemiologia , Humanos , Idoso , Feminino , Neoplasias da Mama/diagnóstico , Neoplasias da Mama/epidemiologia , Neoplasias da Mama/prevenção & controle , Medicare , Mama , Encaminhamento e Consulta , Medição de RiscoRESUMO
The increasing burden of cancer represents a substantial problem for Latin America and the Caribbean. Two Lancet Oncology Commissions in 2013 and 2015 highlighted potential interventions that could advance cancer care in the region by overcoming existing challenges. Areas requiring improvement included insufficient investment in cancer control, non-universal health coverage, fragmented health systems, inequitable concentration of cancer services, inadequate registries, delays in diagnosis or treatment initiation, and insufficient palliative services. Progress has been made in key areas but remains uneven across the region. An unforeseen challenge, the COVID-19 pandemic, strained all resources, and its negative effect on cancer control is expected to continue for years. In this Series paper, we summarise progress in several aspects of cancer control since 2015, and identify persistent barriers requiring commitment of additional resources to reduce the cancer burden in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Assuntos
COVID-19/epidemiologia , Neoplasias/prevenção & controle , SARS-CoV-2 , Região do Caribe/epidemiologia , Efeitos Psicossociais da Doença , Atenção à Saúde/economia , Detecção Precoce de Câncer , Acessibilidade aos Serviços de Saúde , Humanos , América Latina/epidemiologia , Oncologia/educação , Neoplasias/epidemiologiaRESUMO
Cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide, and an increasing threat in low-income and middle-income countries. Our findings in the 2013 Commission in The Lancet Oncology showed several discrepancies between the cancer landscape in Latin America and more developed countries. We reported that funding for health care was a small percentage of national gross domestic product and the percentage of health-care funds diverted to cancer care was even lower. Funds, insurance coverage, doctors, health-care workers, resources, and equipment were also very inequitably distributed between and within countries. We reported that a scarcity of cancer registries hampered the design of credible cancer plans, including initiatives for primary prevention. When we were commissioned by The Lancet Oncology to write an update to our report, we were sceptical that we would uncover much change. To our surprise and gratification much progress has been made in this short time. We are pleased to highlight structural reforms in health-care systems, new programmes for disenfranchised populations, expansion of cancer registries and cancer plans, and implementation of policies to improve primary cancer prevention.
Assuntos
Atenção à Saúde , Seguro Saúde/economia , Neoplasias/epidemiologia , Região do Caribe , Países Desenvolvidos/economia , Humanos , América Latina , Neoplasias/economia , Neoplasias/prevenção & controleRESUMO
Cancer is one of the major non-communicable diseases posing a threat to world health. Unfortunately, improvements in socioeconomic conditions are usually associated with increased cancer incidence. In this Commission, we focus on China, India, and Russia, which share rapidly rising cancer incidence and have cancer mortality rates that are nearly twice as high as in the UK or the USA, vast geographies, growing economies, ageing populations, increasingly westernised lifestyles, relatively disenfranchised subpopulations, serious contamination of the environment, and uncontrolled cancer-causing communicable infections. We describe the overall state of health and cancer control in each country and additional specific issues for consideration: for China, access to care, contamination of the environment, and cancer fatalism and traditional medicine; for India, affordability of care, provision of adequate health personnel, and sociocultural barriers to cancer control; and for Russia, monitoring of the burden of cancer, societal attitudes towards cancer prevention, effects of inequitable treatment and access to medicine, and a need for improved international engagement.