Socioeconomic factors and cancer prevention in Africa : Cervical cancer as an example

● In sub-Saharan Africa, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women, after breast cancer, but more women die from cervical cancer than from breast cancer. ● Although cervical cancer is preventable, services for prevention, early detection, and treatment are rare in low-income countries. ● It was found that for women in developing countries the cervical cancer incidence rates were 2-fold higher and the cervical cancer mortality rates were 3-fold higher than those for women in developed countries. ● The poverty rate (a deprivation level measuring the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty) was a strong predictor of cross-national variations in cervical cancer incidence and mortality.