Cervical Cancer

Solution

At scale, HPV vaccination and effective efforts to screen and treat women for pre-cancerous lesions offer the opportunity to eliminate cervical cancer.  Since 2022, PICSA Uganda has partnered with District governments to scale up secondary prevention programs to reach women with screening and treatment of pre-cancer. PICSA Uganda working on helping to generate evidence on effective tools and models of care to make the goal of elimination possible.

Provision of Comprehensive SRH education for women

To enhance the provision of cervical cancer screening and improvement of RH and family planning services, PICSA Uganda in collaboration with the MOH Teams and the Community Health Workforce are conducting education and awareness and empowerment activities and provision of information on the body, sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs), cervical cancer and sexual rights of women.  A hundred of thousands of women received information on their body, sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs), cervical cancer and sexual rights.

We are focusing on addressing the barrier to reproductive health and cervical cancer screening such as the cost, fear, lack of knowledge, poor accessibility, negative experience, and low prioritization. During our intervention, we learned that education and awareness were the key preventive measures in reproductive health and is the first step in the education and empowerment cycle.

We experienced that initially; the women were more fearful to take action because of limited knowledge about their reproductive health. However, through education about the cervix, they knew what they needed to do in order to be healthy.

Training Community Workforce

We are building the capacity of Community Health Workforce on cervical cancer screening. The trained Community Health Workforce continued to be mentored on improving their skills and knowledge during their work. They continue to make regular home visits and follow up to the homes of the mothers to deliver the self HPV test kits and pick up the test results including supporting referral pathways for positive results. This approach has improved the uptake of cancer screening services among the women within the communities specifically hard to reach.

Training of Health workers on cervical cancer screening, RH and VFP services

PICSA Uganda in collaboration with the Ministry of Health District build capacities of Health workers on integrated cervical cancer screening, RH and VFP services. The Training helped the health professionals to support women who are now attending various maternal and reproductive health services including Family Planning as one STOP services. The training in addition focused on health professional attitude and addressing stigma related to cervical cancer screening and treatment.

Follow up of women

In collaboration with the community health workers, we work on improving loss to follow up for cervical cancer screening and treatment of the enrolled women in the community. Our approach has prevented hundreds of women from loss to follow up by the community health workers through regular home visits.

Community Mobilization and awareness on cervical cancer, RH and Family planning

PICSA Uganda is conducting community mobilization within the selected communities in the underserved setting.  Our approach involved bringing together and working with women, policy makers, and healthcare providers to raise awareness for poor health outcome associated with high rate of cervical cancer. Our community Health workforce bring people together by frequenting area where community members gather for example through door -door visits, visiting market place and churches /mosques to engage women groups of women in the locality.

We engage women through meetings and dialogues on their reproductive health, family planning and cervical cancer screening. PICSA Uganda staff and the Community Workforce engaged with thousands of community members and women to discuss and dialogue on cervical cancer, Reproductive Health and Family planning services.

Raising people’s awareness

We are reaching women and adolescent girls through the community Workforce by increasing awareness of reproductive health issues, educational resources and health services. By increasing awareness of reproductive health issues, educational resources and health services, our community workforce empowered 12,000 women to manage their health (Reproductive health, family planning and cervical cancer screening). PICSA Uganda also enhanced the community awareness on cervical cancer, RH and VFP services through conducting 3 radio talk show with the women. PICSA Uganda is in the process of producing visibility materials such as T-shirts, leaflets and banner to enhance the community awareness.

Directly delivering self-HPV test kits, education and cervical cancer screening and treatment

The community Workforce through the awareness and using PICSA Uganda model assist women by delivering resources such as self-HPV test kits, education and services such as cervical cancer screening to women in their local communities as opposed to women coming to the health facilities to receive the resources and services using traditional approach. During the project period, Community Mobilizers and community Health workers supported by the midwives and nurses directly deliver 600 Self-Test Kit and education material to the women.

Facilitate and strengthen community participation

PICSA Uganda facilitated 40 community sessions in the two districts of Moyo and Obongi to empower women to take charge of their health and seek help needed. Our approach focused on strengthening community participation and empowering through dialogues. By empowering women to take charge of their health and seek help when needed, the actions of community health workers and mobilizers allow women to make healthy choices. Because empowered women empower others, the community mobilization cycle is sustainable without the involvement of an external agent.

Peer-to-Peer Learning

PICSA Uganda conducting peer-to peer Learning to encourage women to educate and empower one another to seek cervical cancer care reduces stigmas surrounding reproductive health. Through the peer -peer learning , women learn to  have control over issues and problems that concern them most to ‘take actions to promote positive aspects of their lives, receive detailed sexual and reproductive health education,  know more about their bodies and how to care for themselves,  pass along what they learned to other women, are  empowered by access to resources such as self- HPV tests and agency provided by a strong reproductive health knowledge – allowing them to achieve a healthier life.

Task Sharing Activities

PICSA Uganda embarked on task sharing to connects patients to physicians through community-level screening and doctor-guided diagnosis and treatment. Community Health workers and community mobilizers, in the community, bring self-HPV tests directly to women – minimizing travel costs while improving trust in the health system Women in the community, who become educated about cervical cancer through interactions with Community Health Workers, share reliable information with others.

Community Health Workers educate and provide women with information on how to get diagnosed and treated for cervical cancer, if necessary. community health workers, are women in the community. They go door-to-door and are trained to: Educate women about cervical cancer, offer self-HPV tests that women can take at home and Provide women with information about their results and referrals via SMS and phone calls.