Launch of the CBIG-SCREEN project, a collaborative Europe-wide effort to tackle inequalities in cervical cancer screening

Scientists from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) will lead a work package to implement cervical cancer screening strategies for vulnerable women in the European Union as part of the CBIG-SCREEN project. CBIG-SCREEN, which was launched on 26 March 2021, is coordinated by the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) with partners including local health authorities, experts in public health and epidemiology, regional cancer institutes, and cancer societies in different European countries.

Screening programmes significantly reduce mortality from cervical cancer, but they remain largely inaccessible and underutilized by vulnerable subpopulations of women, resulting in inequalities in the European health-care system. Cervical cancer is the third most common gynaecological cancer and the second most common in women younger than 45 years. In Europe, more than 61 000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer per year and almost 26 000 of them will die from the disease.

CBIG-SCREEN aims to improve access to and provision of cervical cancer screening to vulnerable groups of women. The vulnerable subpopulations that the project will focus on are women of low socioeconomic status, women living with HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases, incarcerated women, sex workers, and migrants who may not have had access to cancer screening in their country of origin and find it difficult to navigate health-care systems in their new homes.

CBIG-SCREEN has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 964049.

Read more about the CBIG-SCREEN project