The study, led by researchers at Korea University Guro Hospital and Asan Medical Center, drew on the Korean National Health Insurance Service Database, one of the most comprehensive single-payer health records systems in the world. South Korea’s National Cancer Screening Program offers biennial cervical cancer screening to women aged 20 and older, and the researchers compared participation in 2020 against the average participation across 2017 to 2019. Using multivariable logistic regression adjusted for age, income, and region of residence, they calculated the odds of being screened during the pandemic year relative to the pre-pandemic baseline, then stratified the results by disability status, severity, and type of impairment.

The headline numbers are stark. Across the entire population, screening participation declined in 2020, with an odds ratio of 0.828 compared with the previous three years, meaning the odds of being screened fell by roughly 17 percent. But among women with disabilities, the decline was markedly steeper, with an odds ratio of 0.758, compared with 0.832 among women without disabilities. A post hoc heterogeneity analysis comparing the adjusted subgroup estimates confirmed that this difference was statistically robust, with a ratio of adjusted odds ratios of 0.911 and a p-value below 0.001. In plain terms, the pandemic did not merely interrupt screening for everyone; it cut deeper into a group that already faced structural obstacles to preventive care.

Perhaps the most striking pattern emerged when the researchers broke the results down by type of disability. The sharpest reductions occurred among women whose impairments affect communication: those with facial impairments showed an odds ratio of 0.692, those with speech impairments 0.713, and those with hearing impairments 0.728. This gradient suggests that the pandemic-era screening environment, dominated by phone-based booking systems, masked clinical staff, social distancing protocols, and reduced in-person assistance, was particularly hostile to patients who rely on alternative channels of communication. For a woman who is Deaf or hard of hearing, a telehealth triage call or a clinician obscured behind a face mask is not a minor inconvenience; it can be the difference between completing a screening appointment and abandoning it.

The age stratification added another layer of concern. Screening participation actually increased among women aged 20 to 29, with an odds ratio of 1.142, a likely reflection of heightened health awareness among younger adults during the pandemic. But participation dropped sharply among women aged 40 and older, with those aged 40 to 49 showing an odds ratio of 0.744. This age pattern matters clinically because cervical cancer incidence and mortality rise with age, and human papillomavirus infections detected in middle age are more likely to represent persistent, precancerous lesions than transient infections in younger women. A screening gap concentrated among women over 40 therefore translates into a greater expected burden of undetected cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and, ultimately, invasive cancer.

The study’s scale lends it unusual authority. With more than 21 million person-years of observation, the analysis captures essentially the entire eligible population of South Korean women rather than a sampled cohort, eliminating the selection biases that plague smaller studies. Because the National Cancer Screening Program provides standardized invitations and no-cost screening, the researchers could isolate the effect of the pandemic disruption from financial access barriers that confound comparisons in countries without universal coverage. The fact that disparities widened anyway, under a system explicitly designed to equalize access, underscores how deeply embedded the barriers facing women with disabilities are, operating through clinic accessibility, communication design, transportation, and caregiver availability rather than through insurance status alone.

From a technical standpoint, the methodology is straightforward but well suited to the question. Logistic regression models the log-odds of screening participation as a function of calendar period, disability status, and covariates, allowing the researchers to estimate how much of the 2020 decline was attributable to the pandemic shock after accounting for demographic differences. The stratified estimates by disability severity and type reveal heterogeneity that a single pooled estimate would have masked. The authors also note that the data cover only the first pandemic year, 2020, so the analysis captures the acute disruption phase rather than any recovery or catch-up that may have occurred as screening services resumed. Whether the missed screenings in 2020 were later compensated, or whether a backlog of unscreened women accumulated, remains an open question for follow-up research.

The clinical stakes of the gap are not hypothetical. Cervical cancer is among the most preventable malignancies, with screening via cytology and human papillomavirus testing able to detect precancerous changes years before invasive disease develops. Every sustained reduction in screening participation translates, with a lag of several years, into more advanced-stage diagnoses and more deaths. For women with disabilities, who already experience documented disparities in cancer screening across multiple organ systems, the pandemic-era widening of the gap compounds a long-standing inequity. The researchers frame this as a double barrier: the disability-related obstacles that existed before the pandemic, and the crisis-driven disruption that hit that population hardest.

The authors propose equity-focused remedies that go beyond simply restoring pre-pandemic service levels. Accessible screening environments, including adjustable examination equipment, physical access modifications, and staff trained in disability-aware communication, address the structural side of the barrier. Human papillomavirus self-sampling, in which a woman collects her own vaginal specimen for HPV testing, offers a particularly promising avenue because it reduces dependence on clinical environments that may be physically or communicatively inaccessible. Self-sampling has shown strong performance in trials and has been adopted in several national programs; the study’s findings on communication-related impairments suggest it could be especially valuable for women who find conventional pelvic examinations and clinic interactions daunting.

The broader lesson extends well beyond South Korea and well beyond cervical cancer. Public health emergencies stress-test healthcare systems, and the stress is distributed according to the pre-existing architecture of access. Systems that rely on uniform channels, such as telephone booking, standard examination tables, and face-to-face consultations without communication support, will predictably shed their most vulnerable users first when capacity contracts. Building redundancy and flexibility into preventive care, through self-sampling, accessible facilities, outreach tailored to disability type, and equity metrics embedded in screening program dashboards, is not merely a matter of fairness during calm periods. It is the mechanism by which a screening program retains its protective function for the entire population when the next crisis arrives. This study, with its nationwide scope and granular disability stratification, provides the quantitative evidence base for making that case to policymakers.

Subject of Research: COVID-19 pandemic impacts on cervical cancer screening disparities among women with disabilities in South Korea

Article Title: The double barrier: coronavirus disease 2019 and cervical cancer screening disparities among women with disabilities in South Korea: a nationwide cohort study

Article References: Jeong, S., Ham, J., Cho, G. J., Hong, J. H., Lee, J. K., & Cho, H.-W. (2026). The double barrier: coronavirus disease 2019 and cervical cancer screening disparities among women with disabilities in South Korea: a nationwide cohort study. International Journal for Equity in Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-026-03037-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12939-026-03037-0

Keywords: COVID-19, cervical cancer screening, disability, health equity, South Korea, nationwide cohort study, National Cancer Screening Program, HPV self-sampling, preventive care, health disparities, communication impairments, public health