Mitigation and Prevention
This article discusses COVID-19’s impact on rates of breast cancer screening in the United States and the inequalities that revealed themselves regarding screening mammography access across the country. In the spring of 2020, breast cancer screenings, which are a key tool used to detect and mitigate the effects of breast cancer, came to a halt. In the years since, troubling patterns have emerged regarding which communities have access to these screenings and which do not. The authors of this paper cite several studies including one showing a greater decreases in screening volumes during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Black, Latina, and Asian women compared to White women and another revealing slower returns to baseline rates of mammography for Native American, Asian, and Latina women compared to White women. The authors of this paper argue that these disparities are consequential and serve as further evidence of persisting health inequalities and unequal access to medical care. They go on to suggest a potential framework for solutions that involves a multifaceted approach that addresses disparities at the individual, health system, and policy levels. They emphasize that quality measures are the critical first step towards identifying and hopefully remedying deficits like the one seen in breast cancer screening rates.