Improving preventive screening with Indigenous peoples

Abstract

Aboriginal women, for example, have expressed concern that epidemiological risk profiles for cervical cancer used in public health campaigns could further stigmatize aboriginal women as lascivious and irresponsible. Instead, analyses are needed that recognize that high rate of cervical cancer (among other illnesses) can no longer be blamed on women’s high-risk status, nor can low rates of participation in screening programmes be attributed to cultural issues. Rather, these rates are perhaps equally indicative of women’s avoidance of a health system that is not culturally safe and that does little to acknowledge or counter patterns of individual or institutional discrimination. Annette J. Browne and Jo-Anne Fiske1