Equity in Screening

We apply an evidence-based approach to our work. We do research to understand why people may not take part in screening so we can understand how to help them make an informed choice.

Find our research on:

• disabled people and screening
• LGBT+ cervical screening study (PDF, 1.1KB, 45 pages)
• HPV self-sampling
• people with intellectual disabilities and screening
• cervical screening and HPV by socio-economic group
• motivators and barriers to bowel screening
• diabetic retina screening by socio-economic group
• cancer screening participation

Online Patient Reported Experience Measures survey (PREMs)

This survey collects information and feedback from people using our BowelScreen and BreastCheck programmes.

• 2023 BowelScreen PREMs report (PDF, 1.3KB, 12 pages)
• BreastCheck participants invited to share their experiences in online survey

We support our screening staff, HSE staff and the public to learn about ways to make screening more accessible for everyone.

Equity toolkit

Our equity toolkit aims to empower communities to promote equity in cancer risk reduction, screening and early diagnosis.

Equity toolkit - Empowering communities to promote equity in cancer risk reduction screening and early diagnosis (PDF, 3.4MB, 8 pages)

Community Champions Health Promotion project

Our Community Champions Health Promotion project aims to build the capacity of community health workers.

We educate and train community health workers to provide practical information and support about screening in their communities

Online courses

Our online courses for health and social care professionals support our work to improve equity in screening.

• HSE ‘Reducing cancer risk’ - hseland.ie
• Diabetic RetinaScreen eLearning module
• Let’s talk about a literacy friendly approach in healthcare - adultliteracyforlife.ie

Health promotion team

Our health promotion team deliver education and training about screening to health and social care professionals.

For more information, email health.promotion@screeningservice.ie

We work with our screening participants, communities, the public, the HSE, and other organisations to understand the needs of everyone who wants to take part in screening.

Our partnerships include:

• Patient and Public Partnership
• Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre and the HSE National Cancer Control Programme
• Care Alliance Ireland
• LINC – advocating for lesbian and bisexual women in Ireland
• Disability organisations and Disabled people
• Irish Cancer Prevention Network
• HSE’s Cervical Cancer Elimination partnership
• European Joint Action on Cancer Screening – EUCanScreen project

We work to identify what stops people from accessing screening and to remove these barriers.

This work includes:

• a project to invite women aged 60 to 69 for cervical screening
• an eye screening initiative for women with diabetes who become pregnant
• training our staff to support disabled people to access screening

We communicate and share information in different ways to improve health literacy in screening. We want to enable everyone who is eligible to make an informed choice to take part in screening.

We are working to improve health literacy in screening

What we have done

We have created:

• accessible information about our 4 screening programmes
• videos about our screening programmes in multiple languages
• factsheets about our screening programmes in multiple languages

Accessible information

• bowel screening accessible information - bowelscreen.ie
• breast screening accessible information - breastcheck.ie
• cervical screening accessible information - cervicalcheck.ie
• diabetic retinal screening accessible information - diabeticretinascreen.ie

Videos

• BowelScreen
• BreastCheck
• CervicalCheck
• Diabetic RetinaScreen

Factsheets

Screening programmes factsheet in different languages

Research

We have worked with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in an advisory capacity on a large-scale research project to understand people’s perceptions and understanding of our cervical screening information materials.