Language, culture may be barriers to breast cancer screening

Language barriers and cultural norms may be discouraging B.C. women who were born abroad from getting screened for breast cancer.

Breast cancer screening rates for immigrant women are as much as 30 per cent lower than rates for Canadian-born women, according to a newly published study. And women who speak languages that are rare here are least likely to get screened.

Over the course of the two-year study, participation by eligible women from Eastern Europe and Central Asia was only 33.9 per cent. That compares with 52.2 per cent for women born here.

Screening rates were also lower than 50 per cent for women from India, China, Taiwan, Philippines and, in particular, women from South Korea at just 39 per cent.

“A lot of it has to do with what people’s expectations are in their original country,” said Colin Mar, a radiologist at B.C. Cancer and coauthor of the study. “Of course, language must be an issue, particularly when they are new to the country and that is magnified if they are older.”

Nearly 1.3 million British Columbians were born abroad, leaving a potential deficit of tens of thousands of women in B.C. Cancer’s target age range for screening, between 50 and 74 years of age.

Some of the study ’s findings hint at ways to improve participation by all women. Women who saw a family physician regularly where more likely to get screened, regardless of their birthplace.

Screening rates were shockingly low — 5.6 per cent to 16.7 per cent — among women who had not seen a primary care provider in the previous two years. And that is all too common. Doctors of B.C. has estimated that 220,000 people in B.C. have no family doctor.

“Any health promotion works better when people have regular contact with care providers, so we need to figure why certain groups are not having that contact,” said Mar.

Once women get screened once, they are more likely to return for regular screening, he said.

“We should remember too, that our overall screening rate is still just over 50 per cent and that is far short of the national target of 70 per cent,” said Mar.

The study — published in the journal Cancer Medicine — examined the health records of almost 538,000 women in B.C. between the ages of 50 and 69, for the years 2013 and 2014.