Minority ethnic women and cervical screening: a matter of action or research?

Abstract

Concerns over low uptake of cervical screening among minority ethnic women have spurred much research and practical activity to address the problem. Due to theoretical and methodological dif culties, research in this area has tended to focus on the communication de cit of women, without addressing the social context. This has not only hindered a wider theoretical understanding of the problem but, also, has perpetuated ineffective health promotion practice in this area. Using a participatory action research (PAR) approach, the project 'Woman-to-woman: promoting cervical screening to minority ethnic women in primary care', tackled the problem by involving both health professionals and women from the communities. Working in partnership, both professional and lay participants identi ed the problems from their own perspectives and generated solutions to resolve them. An intervention strategy was formulated in which bilingual women from the communities were recruited as community health educators to provide an informed link between their respective communities and the primary care sector. The outcomes of the intervention were evaluated by all participants. This paper aims to introduce PAR as an alternative approach by presenting an overview of the study. It begins by highlighting some of the common theoretical and methodological problems encountered by researchers; and then introduces the research framework of PAR and describes the research processes. A case observation is presented to illustrate the depth of understanding of the screening processes that can be obtained using this approach. The project has demonstrated that applying PAR cannot only lead to meaningful discoveries and insights into the problem of minority ethnic women and cervical screening, but also change in health promotion practice, which would have been dif cult to achieve using a conventional research model. However, this study has also revealed major limitations of PAR, which need to be addressed if the approach is to be further developed.

The reported views and experiences of cancer service users from minority ethnic groups: a critical review of the literature

“…2002; National Cancer Alliance 2002; Randhawa et al . 2003; Chiu 2004; Fazil & Kai 2004; Hussain‐Gambles 2004a).…”

“…A few studies highlighted a perception by respondents of racist attitudes on the part of service‐providers (Iqbal 1994; Iqbal et al . 1995a,b; Simmonds 2001; Chiu 2004).…”

“…2000; Chattoo et al . 2002; Chiu 2004; Pfeffer 2004). On the basis of the findings of their study of palliative care, Young et al .…”

“…1994; Rudat 1994; Kernohan 1996; Box 1998; Chiu 1998; Bell et al . 1999; Chiu 1999; Chiu 2004; Pfeffer 2004). Eleven studies were of palliative care (Iqbal 1994; Hill & Penso 1995; Iqbal et al .…”

Cervical screening in HIV‐positive women: characteristics of those who default and attitudes towards screening

“…The high uptake amongst older and black-African women is encouraging, as the vast majority of research suggests that these are the groups that are under-screened [9,10,11] and therefore at highest risk [12] of developing cervical abnormalities. Other studies have, however, also reported increased uptake in Afro-Caribbean women [13].…”