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Objective: To explore health care providers’ (HCPs) experiences regarding cervical cancer screening (CCS) among immigrant women, their strategies to facilitate these consultations and their need for further information. Design: Exploratory qualitative design. Setting: HCPs who perform CCS: general practitioners, midwives and private gynaecologists, working in Oslo, Norway. Subjects: We interviewed 26 general practitioners, 3 midwives and 3 gynaecologists. Method: Both focus groups and personal in depth semi structured interviews. Interview transcripts were analysed using a thematic analysis approach. Results: Some of the HCPs’ experiences related to CCS were common for all women regardless of their immigrant background, such as the understanding of routines and responsibilities for prevention. Aspects specific for immigrant women were mainly related to organization, language, health literacy levels, culture and gender. Several strategies targeting organizational (longer consultations), language (using interpreters), health literacy (using anatomy models to explain) and culture (dealing with the expression of pain) were reported. Most HCPs had not previously reflected upon specific challenges linked to CCS among immigrant women, thus the interviews were an eye-opener to some extent. HCPs acknowledged that they need more knowledge on immigrant women’s’ reproductive health. Conclusion: HCPs’ biases, stereotypes and assumptions could be a key provider-level barrier to low uptake of CCS test among immigrants if they remained unexplored and unchallenged. HCPs need more information on reproductive health of immigrant women in addition to cultural awareness. Key Points The participation rate of immigrant women to cervical cancer screening in Norway is low, compared to non-immigrants. This might be partly attributed to health care system and provider, and not only due to the women’s preferences. Our focus groups and interviews among health care providers show, that in addition to cultural competence and awareness, they need knowledge on reproductive health of immigrants. We recommend an intervention targeting health care providers to close the gap in cervical cancer screening.

IMPORTANCE Immigrant women have lower participation in cervical cancer screening (CCS) programs. At the same time, some groups of immigrants have higher prevalence of cervical cancer. Targeted interventions are therefore necessary. OBJECTIVE To determine whether an intervention among general practitioners (GPs) could influence immigrant women's participation in the Norwegian CCS program. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Cluster-randomized clinical trial using the 20 subdistricts of the Bergen, Norway, municipality as clusters. The clusters were matched in 10 pairs according to the number of immigrant women living in them and randomized thereafter. The intervention was implemented between January and June 2017 among urban, primary care, general practices in Bergen. Follow-up ended in January 2018. General practices belonging to the control areas continued treatment as usual. A total of 10 360 women who attended 73 general practices in the 20 subdistricts were included as participants. INTERVENTION The intervention consisted of 3 elements: an educational session for GPs at lunch describing the importance of CCS among immigrants and giving advice about how to invite them to participate, a mouse pad as a reminder, and a poster placed in waiting rooms. In the educational session, we elaborated the need for GPs to ask every immigrant woman about CCS, regardless of their reason for contacting their GP. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The main outcome, screening status of immigrant women by January 1, 2018, was obtained from the Norwegian Cancer Registry. The effect of the intervention was measured as odds ratio (OR) for CCS status as of January 1, 2018, for the intervention group vs the control group, with 3 levels of adjustments: baseline CCS status at January 1, 2017 (model 1), additional adjustment for women's age, marital status, income level, and region of origin (model 2), and further adjustment for the GP's sex, age, and region of origin (model 3). Two subgroup analyses, screening status at baseline and women's country of origin, were conducted to assess whether these factors had any influence on the effect of the intervention. Data were analyzed as intention to treat. RESULTS A total of 10 360 immigrant women, 5227 (50.4%; mean [SD] age, 44.0 [12.0] years) in the intervention group and 5133 (49.6%; mean [SD] age, 44.5 [11.6] years) in the control group, belonging to 39 general practices in the intervention area and 34 in the control area, were included in the study. The proportion of immigrant women screened increased by 2.6% in the intervention group and 0.6% in the control group. After adjustment for screening status at baseline, women in the intervention group were more likely to have participated in CCS (OR, 1.24 [95% CI, 1.11-1.38]). This statistically significant effect remained unchanged after adjustment for women's characteristics (OR, (continued) Key Points Question Can an educational intervention for general practitioners increase participation in cervical cancer screening among immigrants? Findings In thi...

Background Migrants in Norway bear a higher burden of COVID-19 infections and hospitalization as compared to non-migrants. The aim of our study was to understand how migrants perceive their own health risk, how they access information regarding the preventive measures, the degree of trust in this information, in the Norwegian authorities and the news media, and migrants’ adherence to authorities’ recommendations regarding the pandemic. Methods An online survey was performed between May and July 2020 among 529 Polish, Arabic, Somali, Tamil, and Spanish-speaking migrants in Norway. For each outcome presented in the aims, unweighted and weighted descriptive analyses were performed for all migrants together and for each language group. Results Sixty-one percent of migrants perceived their health as excellent or very good, with the lowest value (42%) in the Tamil group and the highest among Somalians (85%). The majority of respondents (82%) felt they had received sufficient information. Press conferences from the government, health authorities’ websites, and Norwegian news media were the preferred channels of information for all groups. Most migrants reported a high level of adherence to preventive measures (88%) and trust in Norwegian authorities (79%). However, there were variations among groups regarding the importance of sources of information and level of trust, which was lowest for the Polish group. Conclusion Migrants in Norway reported receiving sufficient information about COVID-19 and high adherence to preventive measures. However, the levels of trust in the information sources, the services and the authorities varied among the groups. Understanding how migrants are dealing with this pandemic is crucial to improve the dissemination of information and trust in the health authorities for the different groups.