The role of sociodemographic factors in attendance at cancer and cardiovascular disease screening and in emergency cancer diagnosis before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in people with severe or complex mental illness

Summary

Severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia can make every-day life harder. People with these conditions may be less likely to go for important health check-ups. They are also more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at a later stage when it’s harder to treat. We also know that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health services affected some groups more than others.

We want to know who is most likely to miss cancer or heart disease screening. We are also interested in who gets diagnosed with cancer through emergency routes rather than visiting their GP. We want to know how screening and diagnosis changed during and after the COVID pandemic. Previous studies have only used health data, but this doesn't include information on education, finances or housing. These might be important in working out who is most likely to miss screening. We will combine health data with information from long-term studies to give a better idea of the groups of people most at risk.  

Knowing which groups are most at risk would allow us to find those who need the most support. We could use this information to improve screening and diagnosis in people with severe or complex mental illness.