TY - JOUR
T1 - Cervical cancer screening rates before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake in the Miyagi Prefecture, Japan
AU - Miki, Yasuhiro
AU - Tase, Toru
AU - Tokunaga, Hideki
AU - Yaegashi, Nobuo
AU - Ito, Kiyoshi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Miki et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - After disasters, issues pertaining to women’s health such as irregular periods and bleeding are well surveyed. However, the management of women’s health, especially changes in the rate of health checkups, has not been investigated. In the present study, we focused on the change in the cervical cancer screening rates (CCS-Rs) before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The earthquake had a magnitude of 9.0, a profound disaster. We examined the CCS-R from 2009 to 2016 in 45 areas of the Miyagi Prefecture. Screening was completed using mobile vans. In the 4 areas impacted by the tsunami after the earthquake, a marked decrease in the CCS-R was observed in 2011 when the earthquake took place (more than a 3% decrease compared with that in the previous year). The CCS-Rs in these 4 regions remained lower in 2016 than in the previous year. In 2009–2016 except for 2014, CCS-Rs in coastal areas (9 areas) were significantly lower than those in the non-coastal areas (36 areas). A delay in seeking healthcare, also known as “patient’s delay,” is considered as one of the problems of cancer treatment in affected areas. It is possible that a decrease in the CCS-R may lead to low detection of advanced stages of cancer. Therefore, the establishment of a comprehensive medical system including medical screening after a disaster is important for the management of women’s health.
AB - After disasters, issues pertaining to women’s health such as irregular periods and bleeding are well surveyed. However, the management of women’s health, especially changes in the rate of health checkups, has not been investigated. In the present study, we focused on the change in the cervical cancer screening rates (CCS-Rs) before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The earthquake had a magnitude of 9.0, a profound disaster. We examined the CCS-R from 2009 to 2016 in 45 areas of the Miyagi Prefecture. Screening was completed using mobile vans. In the 4 areas impacted by the tsunami after the earthquake, a marked decrease in the CCS-R was observed in 2011 when the earthquake took place (more than a 3% decrease compared with that in the previous year). The CCS-Rs in these 4 regions remained lower in 2016 than in the previous year. In 2009–2016 except for 2014, CCS-Rs in coastal areas (9 areas) were significantly lower than those in the non-coastal areas (36 areas). A delay in seeking healthcare, also known as “patient’s delay,” is considered as one of the problems of cancer treatment in affected areas. It is possible that a decrease in the CCS-R may lead to low detection of advanced stages of cancer. Therefore, the establishment of a comprehensive medical system including medical screening after a disaster is important for the management of women’s health.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0229924
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0229924
M3 - Article
C2 - 32160221
AN - SCOPUS:85081225791
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 15
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 3
M1 - e0229924
ER -
