Developing a Cervical Cancer Prevention and Care Cascade in Low and Middle-Income Countries

Introduction: Ninety percent of all women who die from cervical cancer (CC) annually live in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Effective screening (opportunistic or organized) has reduced CC mortality by about 80% in high-income countries but these programs are far from being replicable in LMICs due to scarce resources and competing health priorities. Several countries in Southern Africa (SA) have integrated CC screening into antiretroviral treatment programs. To be effective, these programs need monitoring tools adapted to system needs, which will improve program performance and ultimately reduce CC mortality. Objectives/Methods: To identify and evaluate monitoring indicators from international guidelines and those currently in use in SA for CC screening through a systematic review and site survey. To achieve international agreement on the minimum set of indicators for monitoring of CC screening programs through a Delphi consensus process. To use these indicators to construct a CC cascade and to evaluate the cascade with routinely collected data on HIV and CC screening. Primary outcome: A cascade that will effectively monitor CC screening programs in SA, improving program quality and accelerating scale-up thereby reducing CC related morbidity and mortality.

Keywords: Cervical cancer, screening, monitoring, cascade

Short Biography

Serra completed her Master’s degree in Public health from the Catholic University of Central Africa, Cameroon in 2014. Before joining the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM) in Bern to pursue a PhD in 2018, she was the project leader for a clinical trial comparing Dolutegravir and Efavirenz 400, both combined with Tenofovir and Lamivudine for the initial treatment of people living with HIV in Cameroon. Results from this trial were “welcomed” by the World Health Organization. Her PhD work focuses on “Developing a Cervical Cancer Prevention and Care Cascade for low and middle-income countries”.

In 2019, Serra participated at the SSPH+ ScienceFlashTalk and won the event at the Swiss Public Health Conference with her 3-minute flash talk on Fighting the 'female cancer'.

Serra Lem Asangbeh
Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM)
University of Bern

Personal Website
serra.asangbeh@ispm.unibe.ch

Supervisor: Julia Bohlius