Comprehensive Cancer Control Plan for Michigan, 2009-2015 Goals (2009 - 2015): Cervical Cancer
Goal: Reduce the cervical cancer death rate in Michigan by 30 percent.
Data During 2005, 369 women in Michigan were diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer.1 Death from cervical cancer is considered to be preventable, and no one should die from the disease. Yet, 108 women in Michigan died of the disease in 2007.1 In fact, cervical cancer mortality rates have been stable for at least a decade.
In 2007, Michigan ranked 34th in the nation in death from cervical cancer, with 17 states having lower cervical cancer death rates.2 The incidence of pre-cancerous lesions of the cervix has notably increased in Michigan over the last decade, especially among younger women between the ages of 20 and 39. Cervical cancer causes the highest number of years of life lost among cancers in Michigan with an average of 26 years of life lost per women who dies of cervical cancer.1
Nearly 94 percent of Michigan women age 18 and older have received at least one Pap smear during their lifetime. Almost 78 percent of Michigan women age 18 and older have received a Pap smear within the past three years.3
The American Cancer Society reports that 60 percent to 80 percent of American women with newly diagnosed cervical cancer have not had a Pap smear within the past five years. Of the women diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer during 2007:
31.3 percent were between the ages of 25 and 39;
26.9 percent were between the ages of 40 and 49;
21.4 percent were between the ages of 50 and 64; and
Women less likely to receive cervical cancer screening within the past three years include those with low income, less than a high school education, and/or between the ages of 18 and 29 and over the age of 70.3
Women who do not receive cervical cancer screening are also likely not to have a “medical home” and do not receive other screening tests, such as mammograms and colorectal cancer screening.
3 Michigan Department of Community Health, Bureau of Epidemiology. Behavioral Risk Factor Survey, 2006. Available online at www.michigan.gov/brfs.
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