SPR's Doug Nadvornick reports.
Washington State University researchers say one of the casualties of the Covid pandemic is regular screening for breast cancer. They say about half as many women in Washington received mammograms during the pandemic, compared to the year before.
WSU researchers used data from MultiCare’s medical records. They found 55,678 MultiCare clients in Washington received mammograms from April to December 2019. During the same timeframe in 2020, some of it during the height of the pandemic, about half, 27,522 women, had that procedure done.
“We observed inequities that women, specifically Hispanic women, experienced the largest drop in breast cancer screening in the pandemic," says researcher Ofer Amram from the WSU College of Medicine. He says the number of mammograms performed on women of color was down by 60% or more, compared to 50% decreases for white women.