Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Oct 10, 2016; 7(5): 406-413
Published online Oct 10, 2016. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v7.i5.406
Factors associated with cervical cancer screening in a safety net population
Meredith A Heberer, Ian K Komenaka, Jesse N Nodora, Chiu-Hsieh Hsu, Sonal G Gandhi, Lauren E Welch, Marcia E Bouton, Paula Aristizabal, Barry D Weiss, Maria Elena Martinez
Meredith A Heberer, Ian K Komenaka, Lauren E Welch, Marcia E Bouton, Maricopa Medical Center, Phoenix, AZ 85008, United States
Ian K Komenaka, Chiu-Hsieh Hsu, Arizona Cancer Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States
Jesse N Nodora, Maria Elena Martinez, Moores UCSD Cancer Center, San Diego, CA 92101, United States
Chiu-Hsieh Hsu, Mel and Enid Zuckerman Arizona College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States
Sonal G Gandhi, New Horizon Women’s Care, Chandler, AZ 62691, United States
Paula Aristizabal, Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, San Diego, CA 92101, United States
Barry D Weiss, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States
Author contributions: All the authors contribute to the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Maricopa Medical Center Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: Waiver of informed consent was obtained from the Maricopa Medical Center Institutional Review Board for this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors report no conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: No data were created so no data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ian K Komenaka, MD, Maricopa Medical Center, Hogan Building, 2nd Floor, 2601 E Roosevelt Street, Phoenix, AZ 85008, United States. komenaka@hotmail.com
Telephone: +1-602-3445368 Fax: +1-602-3441299
Received: February 19, 2016
Peer-review started: February 22, 2016
First decision: March 25, 2016
Revised: June 18, 2016
Accepted: August 11, 2016
Article in press: August 13, 2016
Published online: October 10, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Patient health literacy and type of primary care physician were associated with Papanicolaou-smear utilization. Development of interventions to target low health literacy populations could improve cervical cancer screening and therefore improve screening in populations most at risk for cervical cancer.