Paper short abstract:

This study draws from findings of an ongoing long-term community-based participatory study in low-income areas of Argentina with the goal of providing insights into the role played by social determinants of health in cancer inequity during the first phases of the continuum of cancer control.

Paper long abstract:

Latin America has almost twice the overall cancer mortality than global north countries, and a greater proportion of the burden of morbidity, with inequities associated with this cancer burden (IARC/WHO, 2008). Epidemiological data show that this panorama also occurs in Argentina, with a fragmented health infrastructure, limited health-care coverage, insufficient funding and human resources, heterogeneity in the distribution of them and insufficient implementation of cancer registries and national cancer plans (Lancet Oncology, 2015: 1405). Even when most of the determinants of health are outside the health-care sector, its role in tackling health inequities is widely recognized (Cohen & Marshal, 2017). However, the role played by the first level of attention turned out to be an important determinant for explaining this gap, especially since it is much more easily modified than distal determinants, due to the fact that there are cancers that diagnosed in time are either preventable, such as cervical cancer, or treatable and curable if detected in early stages, such as breast cancer (IARC/WHO, 2008). This study draws from findings of an ongoing long-term community-based participatory study anchor in low-income rural and peri-urban areas of Argentina, with the goal of providing insights into the role played by social determinants of health in cancer inequity during the first phases of the continuum of cancer control. It is based on a collaborative design oriented to equity; organized in a collaborative format; and work with communities. The strategy combined specific forms of inquiry, mainly ethnography and other qualitative methods.