麻豆传媒映画 study links girls鈥� education to lifesaving cancer screenings in Africa
Education emerges as a powerful tool in women's healthcare decisions and could reshape policy investments in underserved communities from Africa to the U.S."
Just one additional year of school boosts a woman's chances of getting lifesaving cervical cancer screenings by 35% among women in Lesotho, a country in southern Africa. A new study from 麻豆传媒映画 found that the number of years a girl spends in school is directly linked to her getting potentially lifesaving cancer screenings as an adult.
"Despite global efforts to increase cancer awareness, women in sub-Saharan Africa are still diagnosed and treated too late," said Professor Jan-Walter De Neve, the study's lead investigator and director of the at 麻豆传媒映画's .
In Lesotho, cervical cancer kills women at triple the rate of the sub-Saharan average. National screening programs remain limited, and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programs for young girls only recently resumed after funding had previously dried up, explained De Neve.
The educational gap is stark in Lesotho, where adults average about seven years of formal schooling, compared to 12 years or more in higher-income countries.
"We found that each additional year of schooling increased cervical cancer screenings in adulthood by 3.5 (percentage) points, which implies a relative 35% increase in cervical cancer screening among women in Lesotho, compared to a baseline of about 10%," De Neve said.
An international collaboration
De Neve's research team, funded by the (USAID), includes collaborators from Harvard University, Germany's Heidelberg University, the Global Education Analytics Institute in Kenya, and the National University of Lesotho. The team analyzed more than 7,000 demographic health surveys from women aged 25-29, collected over a five-year period, and found that the health benefits of staying in school were not tied to a health-specific curriculum. Instead, they reported that basic literacy and learning skills proved transformative.
"The data shows that skills developed during middle childhood and adolescence, such as improved reading in English or Sesotho created lasting impacts," De Neve said.
Women's life expectancy in Lesotho hovers around 60 years, compared to about 81 years in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Implications for U.S. communities
The American Cancer Society reports similar patterns in the U.S., where childhood education levels correlate strongly with rates of adult preventive health care. Age, income, access to health care and educational attainment all influence cancer screening rates among adults.
In addition to having significant health implications for sub-Saharan Africa, the findings will inform health policy and investment decisions in the United States, where significant gaps persist in both underfunded school districts and preventive health care across underfunded schools and underinsured communities, De Neve said.
"Global health challenges ultimately impact everyone," De Neve said. "The lessons we learn in Lesotho and other countries can directly inform public health policies in the U.S. and around the world.鈥�
The Lesotho research study is published in the journal .
