One in three women between the ages of 50 and 70 are not aware that a cervical screen is a test that all women should take and among those who had never had one of these tests, the number of women who are not aware of how vital the test is grows to 67%. This is especially the case for women who are single or who are not engaging in sexual activity. Women who are divorced, separated or single were more likely to never have had a screen compared with those in a relationship. These figures come from a YouGov survey which was carried out for Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust.
Across England, the number of 50 to 70 year olds attending for cervical screening fell. In 2010, the numbers fell below 80% and they dropped again in 2011. A statistic released by the NHS Cervical Screening Programme Audit of Invasive Cervical Cancer ’07-’10, reveals that 56% of women between the ages of 50 and 64 who had cancer had not had a screen for 7 years. The equivalent figure for women without cervical cancer was 16%.
This was quite a large survey where 2,397 women between the ages of 50 and 70 were questioned. Worryingly, two thirds of these women were not aware that most cases of cervical cancer were caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV). More than half of them thought that this form of cancer was caused by having a number of different partners and one in five thought that the cancer was hereditary.
Those at the Trust state that the vital message is that a woman can have only one partner in her lifetime and still contract HPV.