Cervical cancer screening advice for gypsies and travellers

[RoyalCorgi]

This is fascinating. A very short leaflet with advice on cervical cancer screening.

https://www.gypsy-traveller.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Cervical-Cancer-Leaflet.pdf

Absolutely nothing to say who the leaflet is aimed at, apart from the need to be aged over 25.

Good lord.

Ah, yes, sponsored by Gilead. Of course it is.

It would be helpful if they mentioned what type of bleeding was to be monitored, or from what part of your body instead of just saying bleeding ffs

Wow - not only doesn't mention that it's for women, also doesn't actually mention the word 'cervical' except in the.footer - which a lot of people don't read - just 'a screening'.

And the primary purpose of that mysterious screening? To keep you healthy for when you have a family.

Gilead indeed.

Indeed. I quite often get nosebleeds - should I be worried?

It's an odd one, but certainly Romani Gypsies have a lot of taboo language so it might be that it won't work for them to mention periods or specific body parts.

Don't know about other travellers though - they're not the same.

I don't see why they wouldn't mention women though - it does slip in right at the end when mentioning the sex of the health care worker.

Based in Brighton. 🙄

Or what sort of changes.

"Any changes that are unusual"? What any change is something that might need a smear test to investigate?

Absolutely batshit to have an information leaflet about a smear test that does not tell you even a little bit about what sort of test it is.

“Are you worried?

Get screened.”

That’s inclusive of everyone, every identity, every symptom and every disease. I think I win the DEI prize and should be appointed chair of something as a result.

https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-021-10390-y

A really interesting study that discusses various related issues.

'Both Roma and Gypsy/Traveller women thought cervical screening was offered too late in the UK. For Gypsy/Traveller women this was because they were likely to be married with children by the age of 25 years, and also because they knew of celebrities who had died young of cervical cancer. As a private matter, screening would not be discussed between the sexes.
Screening could conflict with the ideals of privacy and modesty that are part of the Gypsy/Traveller culture. Although most overcame these feelings, for some it continued to be a barrier even when screening was offered opportunistically in primary care:'

From 2018/2019

From a quick skim-read it seems the word 'cancer' may be more problematic than 'cervix' and certainly can't imagine 'woman' is taboo.

Agree with everyone's comments. The whole leaflet is bizarre because it doesn't tell you what a cervix is, or what the smear test involves, or what it's testing for. It's very very mysterious. The only people who are going to understand what the leaflet is on about are the sort of people who are probably already going for cervical screening. The people who are less likely to go for cervical screening (poor, uneducated, limited language skills) are going to be none the wiser after reading this leaflet.

Good grief - do they think all Gypsies and Travellers are uneducated morons who need to be treated like infants? So patronising!

Cervical screening needs to begin much earlier for Romany women.
Marriage and child bearing begins much earlier.
This leaflet seems to be calling for a screening after a problem begins, rather than a regular screening.

The wording is very unclear. It confuses two things - the need to go to your doctor if you have a particular set of symptoms and the need to attend regular screening regardless of whether you have symptoms or not.

It's interesting that the leaflet was apparently produced in consultation with the gypsy and traveller community. I can't see how anyone would read it and say "yes, that's going to work."

That leaflet is dangerous. If you didn't know about cervical screening you wouldn't be any the wiser after reading it, and if you did know about it you might easily get the impression you only really need it if you have symptoms.

I think this may be another case where activists are silently relying on people 'just knowing' things that they would call actively transphobic and now verboten to say.

Such as 'women have cervixes'.

Older people will quite probably know this. A child educated post TWAW in the 'over 100 gender' years and the 'some girls just don't have periods and that's great!' school curriculum will not.

How does anyone explain who has a cervix if they are claiming that anyone can be a woman?

How does an eight, ten, thirteen year old know whether they have a cervix or not?

It's designed for people with low literacy levels. The picture on the front is of women and in the background are gynaecological drawings - that is to indicate what and who it is for. It relies on a lot being implied because there are a lot of words that are taboo in gypsy culture.

Not saying any of this is right, of course all women should be educated on their bodies regardless of culture/race/religion etc, but I can see why this leaflet was created in this way. It is to break through to women who wouldn't otherwise go for screenings.

Is there really an organisation called Gilead?!

Why doesn't the leaflet mention what cervical screening is actually check for?

And yes that obviously it's targeted at women so why doesn't it say that?

Leaflet fail

Why does it state that screening is for ages 25 and over?

I had a smear at university, when I was 18 or 19. Have things changed?

I actually do think it can be seen as taboo in traveller culture to talk about periods and women's reproductive organs. Definitely some the men are very opposed to hearing it, and I think some of the women might be similar? Of course this probably doesn't apply to all but I read recently some traveller women saying it was taboo.
But then surely the information needs to be clearer, not less so? It does seem odd.

@BobbyBiscuits
I didn't know that, that's really sad. And wrong that cultural taboos and norms, especially those The Men especially want to uphold, trump something which could save a young woman's life.

At my old school we had a lot of traveller children and they were removed from PSHE lessons that talked about sex education and puberty at parental request.

I was also told conversations around puberty had to be stopped if traveller children were present, eg if you had a bunch of kids doing some art catch up in the shared area and they were chatting amongst themselves and a kid said something about periods to a staff member because they were wondering aloud, we would have to shut it down if a traveller pupil was there. Whether this was a misunderstand on SLTs part, over caution or from prior experience of complaints I never found out.

Worth a read of the study I posted. Seems there may be some reluctance to use the word 'cancer' in some groups.

Literacy and educational attainment are lower among some groups. That isnt a judgement of or reflection on intelligence, there are various reasons for it.

That's the key though isn't it?

If you don't know (and to be clear, I don't know but I've got some experience with research into how to improve uptake of other sorts of health interventions with specific underserved communities with this being one of them), you can't really say how far from the mark this leaflet is.

If it's the case that the word "cancer" or "period" or "sex" would make a leaflet un-usable in this community, then you need to ask the women you're targeting what will work with them.

It may be that, as a pp has said, the pictures and the, to us, very opaque language are communicating something to the target group that we don't see because we don't share a cultural background with them.

I don't think it's a trans thing at all btw in this context.