A steep drop in breast cancer screenings in Washington during the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have most affected women of color and those living in rural communities, according to Washington
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.
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JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is the new online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.
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SPOKANE, Wash. Breast cancer screening took a sizeable hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggests new research that showed that the number of screening mammograms completed in a large group of women living in Washington State plummeted by nearly half. Published today in
JAMA Network Open, the study found the steepest drop-offs among women of color and those living in rural communities. Detecting breast cancer at an early stage dramatically increases the chances that treatment will be successful, said lead study author Ofer Amram, an assistant professor in the Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine whose research focuses on health inequities. Our study findings suggest that health care providers need to double down on efforts to maintain prevention services and reach out to these underserved populations, who faced considerable health disparities even before the pandemic.