Objectives: to evaluate if the country of origin affects participation and outcomes of cervical cancer screening.
Design: retrospective cohort study.
Setting and participants: all Italian and foreign women resident in the Veneto region (North-Eastern Italy) who were born between 1986 and 1992 and who had been invited for the first time through the screening programme between 2011 and 2017 were identified and included in the survey.
Main outcome measures: participation to screening was calculated along with the detection of Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia (CIN) grade 2 or 3 and of carcinoma, by citizenship.
Results: 96,105 (77.5%) Italians and 27,958 (22.5%) foreign women were included. Overall, the adjusted participation was 53.3%, with large differences among the geographical study areas. The value was highest for Italian women (56.4%), while women with other citizenships showed lower attendance: 45.5% for Eastern Europe, 44.8% for Sub Saharan Africa, 40.0% for Northern Africa, 38.5% for Central and Southern America, and 36.5% for Asia. The detection of CIN2+ was higher for women from Central and Southern America (23.0‰) or from Eastern Europe (17.9‰), while it was lower for those from Italy (11.9‰), Northern Africa (7.5‰), Sub-Saharan Africa (6.6‰), and from Asia (2.5‰) (p<0.001).
Conclusions: cervical screening programmes should identify and face the barriers to participation of foreign women. This is particularly important for women from geographic areas with a high prevalence of disease, such as Central and Southern America and Eastern Europe.
Keywords: CIN2+; Cervical cancer screening; Foreign women; HPV; Immigrants.