Barriers to breast and cervical cancer screening among adolescent girls and young women in Kenya: A nationwide cross-sectional survey

Promoting regular screening remains one of the primary preventive measures for breast and cervical cancer. The study aimed to assess the prevalence and barriers to breast and cervical cancer screening among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Kenya. The study used data from the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS), with 12,026 AGYW who were selected by multistage sampling. The outcomes of interest were breast and cervical cancer screening. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess factors negatively associated with the outcome variables, using SPSS (version 29.0). Of the 12,026 AGYW included in this study, only 6.0% (95%CI: 5.6–6.8) and 5.1% (95%CI: 4.8–6.0) had undertaken breast and cervical cancer screening, respectively. Low education (AOR = 0.08, 95%CI: 0.02–0.34 and AOR = 0.48, 95%CI: 0.28–0.83), not working (AOR = 0.67, 95%CI: 0.46–0.97 and AOR = 0.59, 95%CI: 0.42–0.82), low wealth index (AOR = 0.55, 95%CI: 0.32–0.92 and AOR = 0.45, 95%CI: 0.25–0.81), no visit to a healthcare facility in the last 6 months (AOR = 0.48, 95%CI: 0.33–0.69 and AOR = 0.50, 95%CI: 0.35–0.71), and no birth record (AOR = 0.29, 95%CI: 0.13–0.62 and AOR = 0.58, 95%CI: 0.27–0.74), were the major barriers to both breast and cervical cancer screening, respectively. Moreover, having no access to newspaper (AOR = 0.67, 95%CI: 0.46–0.97) was a significant barrier to breast cancer screening while having big problems with distance to a healthcare facility (AOR = 0.49, 95%CI: 0.33–0.73) and not using modern contraception (AOR = 0.60, 95%CI: 0.42–0.86) hindered cervical cancer screening. In conclusion, more efforts are needed from both the government and cancer stakeholders to increase accessibility of breast and cervical cancer screening services, especially to those with low social economic status. More targeted education and sensitization, improving livelihoods of AGYW through various women empowerment efforts, and improving screening capacity of low-grade healthcare facilities are among the useful strategies to improve the low screening rates.