Abstract Breast and cervical cancers are two of the most common cancers and major public health concerns worldwide. Early detection can reduce morbidity and mortality from breast and cervical cancer. Evidence suggests strong associations between screening participation and race and/or ethnic background. In Australia, Muslim populations are growing and they have unique religious customs, socio-economic backgrounds, and cultures than other minority population groups. There is a significant gap in the literature with respect to understanding the participation of Muslim populations in different preventive health care programs. This study investigated the participation of Muslim women in cancer screening and HPV vaccination programs to advance knowledge that informs culturally sensitive public health programs. This study also applied the socio-ecological model of health to develop a conceptual framework that informed to investigate breast and cervical screening participation among women born in Muslim countries and HPV vaccination participation among female students of Islamic schools in comparison to non-Islamic schools. This study used the record linkage data between hospital admission records and cervical or breast screening register data from Victoria, Australia. This study also explored the HPV vaccination coverage using school-level HPV vaccine dose data from Victoria. This study revealed lower rates of breast and cervical screening participation among women born in Muslim countries. It also found that there was considerable diversity in screening participation among women born in different Muslim countries. Lower coverage of HPV vaccination in Islamic schools than in non-Islamic schools was found, suggesting disparities in vaccination. The public health significance of the study is, for instance, lack of high HPV vaccination coverage in population groups with lower levels of future cervical screening participation may reduce population-level impact of vaccination program and increase disparities in the incidence of cervical and other cancers caused by HPV. Disparities in cervical screening participation and HPV vaccination may affect Australia’s target to eliminate cervical cancer. This study highlights the importance of culturally sensitive preventive health programs for equitable screening and vaccination coverage among migrant Muslim women and adolescents. The study emphasizes the multifaceted influences of socio-ecological factors on migrant Muslim women's preventive health care choices. It suggests the need to develop and evaluate targeted interventions to address disparities and potential interventions span individual, interpersonal, institutional, community, and policy levels, including strategies such as providing translated health information, interpreter services, culturally appropriate promotional and educational materials, cultural competence training for healthcare professionals, access to screening services for underserved communities, and policy initiatives to reduce disparities among migrant Muslim women. Citation Format: Tahira Yeasmeen, Anne Kavanagh, Julia Brotherton, Michael Malloy. Preventive health experiences of migrant Muslim women in Australia: Breast and cervical screening participation and HPV vaccination uptake abstract. In: Proceedings of the 18th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities; 2025 Sep 18-21; Baltimore, MD. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2025;34(9 Suppl):Abstract nr C165.
Yeasmeen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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