Rural-urban divide in cervical cancer means more cases and deaths
After a long decline, cervical cancer rates are rising in rural counties, increasing a gap with urban counties, a new study finds.
It’s easy to think cervical cancer could be 100% preventable. Along with lung, breast, and colorectal cancer, it has screening tests to find precancerous changes that can be treated before full-blown cancer develops. Even more, there is a highly effective vaccine against HPV, the virus that causes most cervical cancer diagnoses.
Still, those two forms of prevention are not enough if people aren’t getting them, a research letter published Monday in JAMA Network Open reports. The cross-sectional study found incidence and mortality rates have been climbing in rural counties in the United States since 2012, going in the wrong direction after declining since 2001. Cases were 25% higher and deaths were 42% higher in rural counties compared to urban counties through 2019.
