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January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month. Here's why cervical cancer screenings are crucial

September 24, 2020
An ultrasound machine sits next to an exam table in an examination room at Whole Woman's Health of South Bend on June 19, 2019 in South Bend, Indiana.
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Sandra Salathe
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It's a universal fact no woman enjoys visiting her OB/GYN. Whether it's for a procedural check-up or a persisting medical issue, a trip to your OB/GYN can often feel as unpleasant as surviving Christmas dinner with your extended, dysfunctional family. Nevertheless, a visit to the gynecologist is a mandatory trip that should be done regularly, but often gets neglected. According to this Mayo Clinic study, nearly two-thirds of women between the ages of 30 and 65 were not up-to-date with their cervical cancer screenings.

That percentage is even lower for women aged 21 to 29.

Routine cervical cancer screenings should happen every three years with a Pap test, or every five years with a Pap-HPV co-test, which ensures precancerous changes are caught early. However, many women tend to neglect these screenings that could impact their lives tremendously.

In addition to the statistics, researchers at Mayo Clinic discovered race also plays a huge role in terms of who's getting screened. Black women of color were 50 percent less likely to be up-to-date on cervical cancer screenings than Caucasian women, with Asian women falling behind by 30 percent.

These new findings are extremely concerning, especially considering cervical cancer is one of the most preventable types of cancer, affecting around 13,000 women each year. What's more, cervical cancer death rates have dropped immensely within recent decades, mainly due to the development of the Pap test in the 1950s.

A routine test involves collecting cells from a woman's cervix, examining them under a microscope to look for precancerous and cancerous cells. There is also a second kind of cervical cancer screening — called the HPV test, — which detects the presence of high-risk HPV (Human Papillomavirus) that leads to precancerous changes and cervical cancer.

Dr. Jennifer Butt, a renowned gynecologist at Upper East Side OB/GYN in New York City, understands this better than anyone.

"Young women are sometimes unsure when screening for cervical cancer should start and how frequent," it should be, she explains. "Some women have had a bad experience with their first OB/GYN visit so fear is definitely one component I've seen."

Dr. Butt also adds younger women tend to be healthier and forget they should see the doctor for routine care, prevention, and screening. However, that doesn't mean those individuals should neglect their screenings altogether.

It is important women visit their OB/GYN every year for their annual routine check up. Regardless of their age, history and previous PAP smears, a PAP may be done as part of that annual exam. Many doctors believe it's a huge misconception that if you don't need a PAP, then you don't need to see the OB/GYN.

One company working to rectify this concerning situation is the consumer health and telemedicine company, Nurx. Just last year, the company introduced a home HPV screening test, which allows women to conveniently and affordably check their risk for cervical cancer at home. Factoring the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic - and fear of an impending second wave - this couldn't be more convenient.

What's more, Nurx aims to remove barriers to care, making it easy for women to get the information they need to make better decisions about their health. So how does it all work?

After answering a few questions about your medical history, Nurx's medical team will determine if a patient is an appropriate candidate for the home test. The testing kit will then be delivered to the patient's home, where they will complete a simple vaginal swab and send the sample back to the lab in a pre-paid envelope. Within a few days, Nurx's medical team will reach out to the patient to discuss their results. Nurx's Home HPV Screening test meets recently updated guidelines, which now offers HPV testing as an appropriate alternative to a pap smear.

Nurx also offers prescriptions for birth control and the HIV prevention medication PrEP. Last year, the company introduced a Home PrEP test kit, allowing people to complete all of the required and recommended lab work from their home. Since the company began offering the test kit, Nurx has seen a vast increase in the request for PrEP and is now the leading online provider of HIV prevention medication.

Although the test is 100% safe, patients shouldn't forgo visiting their OB/GYN's on a regular basis. Nurx designed the home screening kit as a motivational alternative for women who otherwise wouldn't be able to visit their regular OB/GYN. But doctors are hopeful these tests will be a useful and enlightening tool, especially now with the pandemic.

"Better education is paramount," explains Dr. Butt. "Explaining what is a PAP, why we get PAPs, how frequent, what is a screening test - these are all important aspects of a woman's health that surprisingly a good number of women are unsure of."

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Can tech help female entrepreneurs break the bias?

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.