Cervical Cancer, Essay Example

Interestingly, one of the main results published in the article “Rural-Urban Trends and Patterns in Cervical Cancer Mortality, Incidence, Stage, and Survival in the United States, 1950-2008” was that during the last five decades, “women in non-metropolitan areas had significantly higher cervical cancer mortality than those in metropolitan areas” (Singh, 2012). This is a strange find because conventionally, we expect women in metropolitan areas to have a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with cancer due to the more frequent exposure of these groups to risk factors, such as air pollution. However, these results indicate that there may be other variables that are more highly associated with the development of cervical cancer. One major characteristic that should be considered is the physical activity that metropolitan and non-metropolitan women typically engage in. Previous studies have shown that metropolitan women tend to have a higher degree of physical fitness.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are higher rates of cervical cancer in states with major cities compared to the states with smaller cities. Therefore, there is a clear discrepancy between the data reported by this article and that published by the CDC. It would be reasonable to repeat this study using a different set of parameters while searching databases to ensure that the information retrieved is reflective of the overall United States population. It was somewhat unclear as to how these parameters were selected, so it would be necessary to repeat the analysis to determine the validity of the results. On the other hand, this paper was effective because it brings to light the possibility that we are missing a variable in our consideration of cervical cancer risk factors. This indicates that it is therefore necessary to continue studying this relationship.