IARC and Irish health services publish summary of best practices in cervical screening programmes

Researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and partners have outlined the current best practices for the delivery of an effective cervical screening programme, as part of the CervScreen Project, a joint initiative of IARC and the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive of Ireland. In conjunction with the closing meeting for the CervScreen Project, which is being held in Dublin, Ireland, on 5 July, the project report has been published as IARC Working Group Report No. 11: Best practices in cervical screening programmes: audit of cancers, legal and ethical frameworks, communication, and workforce competencies. A summary brochure is also available.

Well-organized screening programmes have been shown to reduce the incidence and mortality rates of cervical cancer in populations. The development of best practices for cervical screening programmes is critical to ensure that these programmes are effective, efficient, and safe for all participants. The new report describes current best practices in the following aspects of a cervical screening programme: conducting an audit of cervical cancers, establishing legal and ethical frameworks, developing strategies for effective communication with target populations and other stakeholders, and establishing a framework for developing workforce competencies in communication.

IARC and its partners in Ireland carried out the CervScreen Project to address global issues relating to the quality and coverage of cervical screening programmes. As part of this joint initiative, IARC and the Irish authorities formed three Technical Working Groups, comprising global experts in the areas of public health, the implementation and quality improvement of cancer screening, health communication, national and international laws governing relevant medicolegal issues, and regulations in data protection. The best practices in this new report are the outcomes of the deliberations of the three Technical Working Groups.

The aim of the CervScreen Project is to provide an attractive model for implementing global best practices in cancer screening at the national level after contextualizing them to the local setting.