This past weekend, I attended a conference on health and high politics examining the role of politics, global partnerships, and innovation in health equity and security. Two talks at the end of the day stood out for me. The first was by Dr. Leslie Davidson, a professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at Columbia University, and the second was by Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, a medical oncologist at Women’s College Research Institute in Toronto who specializes in women’s health equity and global cancer control.

A common thread in both talks was the increasingly important role of community health workers in meeting the challenges of delivering health services to underserved populations. During Dr. Davidson’s talk, she mentioned a recently published study from Argentina demonstrating the effectiveness of using community health workers as part of an integrative program to promote cervical cancer screening. Ever intrigued, I decided to read the original paper and share it here.

In the study published in Lancet Global Health, researchers found that when community health workers offered self-collecting HPV tests to women, participation rates increased four-fold. Human papillomavirus, or HPV, DNA testing is emerging as a viable alternative to Pap smears in low-resource settings. Earlier studies have shown that HPV DNA testing is as sensitive as conventional Pap smears in detecting cervical disease. An additional benefit of HPV DNA testing is the potential for self-sampling, which allows women to collect their own vaginal swabs in the comfort of their own homes. Continue reading →