The Netherlands faces a new report showing inequalities in cancer screening between high- and low-income people. Advocates are calling for public health to be incorporated into all types of policies to reduce treatment disparities.
The Netherlands’ Integrated Cancer Organization (IKNL) told Euractic that income-related treatment disparities are relevant to the prevention, screening and care of cancer patients, calling for a formal “health in all policies” approach. claims.
Earlier this year, a report by the Swedish Institute for Health Economics (IHE), commissioned by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry Associations (EFPIA), found that the risk of developing and surviving cancer depends on where a person lives. There was found. It has therefore become important to identify and reduce the inequalities that European patients face when compared to their neighbors in other EU countries.
Although the Netherlands is one of the leading countries in several indicators, we have also identified areas where there is room for improvement. For example, the disparity in participation in cancer screening between high-income and low-income people was found to be large compared to other EU member states. As a result, such disadvantaged patients often present with more advanced stages of cancer.
“Our health is determined not only by our lifestyle, genes, and access to care, but also by factors such as our living environment, housing environment, and income. Policymakers can help reduce health disparities by taking these factors into account. ,” an IKNL spokesperson told Euractiv.
Misinformation or lack of insurance
Administrative aspects such as the provision of accurate and easy-to-understand information, complemented by targeted audience-focused prevention programs, need to be considered.
Possible reasons for socio-economic screening disparities include lack of knowledge or misinformation about cancer screening, migration history, uninsured or underinsured, and low health literacy, the spokesperson said.
They added that it is also important to consider health in parallel with other policy areas.
“The resulting policies are called Health in All Policies (HiAP). Healthcare providers should consider health literacy and potential barriers to reduce inequalities by ensuring patient-centered care. The spokesperson said, emphasizing that a person’s health is not only determined by lifestyle, genes, and access to care.
A spokesperson for IKNL said there are many ongoing efforts to continue reducing inequalities in cancer care. He is the knowledge institution and administrator of the Dutch Cancer Registry, IKNL, and he is one of the initiators of the Dutch Cancer Agenda, which considers inequalities in all its themes and activities.
The spokesperson emphasized that several years ago, as part of the National Prevention Program, the Ministry of Health began providing funding to municipalities to promote regional integrated approaches to reducing health inequalities. The GezondIn program provided 164 local authorities with tailored advice and support on local approaches to health inequalities.
“Despite all these efforts, much remains to be done to reduce disparities. At IKNL, we are using data-driven insights to uncover this.” the person in charge said.
However, IKNL also frequently spotlights areas where the Netherlands excels. For example, the Netherlands displays Nutri-Score on product packaging to help people more clearly distinguish between healthy and unhealthy foods.
The Netherlands also uses HPV vaccination buses and temporary vaccination stops during HPV vaccination campaigns to reach the target population of young adults.
More than half of biopsies use NGS
The IHE report mentions several areas where other countries, including the Netherlands, are considered leaders. Denmark and the Netherlands were the only countries to report the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS), which provides oncologists with a more comprehensive technology. In more than half of all biopsies, diagnostic information that can be used to provide more targeted treatment to patients.
In contrast, biopsy samples are not analyzed by NGS in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The report also found that while in the Netherlands there are more than 2,000 cancer survivors per 100,000 inhabitants, in Cyprus this figure has fallen to less than 1,300.
According to the IHE report, the publication of the European Beating Cancer Plan (EBCP) in 2021 has significantly strengthened the political commitment to cancer control at EU level. One key element of this plan involves improving access to innovative, evidence-based treatments.
Pharmaceutical companies as partners
Euractic asked Andrew Plank, General Manager of Roche Netherlands, whether there is a role for pharmaceutical companies to play in reducing inequalities in cancer treatment. Plank said Roche has voluntarily committed to submit pricing and reimbursement (P&R) applications for its medicines, including oncology drugs, in all EU member states within two years of EU approval.
“This is the first step we can take to ensure we bring any innovation to market, and we adopt it across all health systems to benefit patients. We can give them opportunities as quickly as possible,” Plank said.
However, Plank stressed the importance of working collaboratively with governments because they know where patients live and work and how to properly provide care.
“We can provide solutions, but we are not the sector that provides care. That’s why we want to be partners. We want to collaborate. We want to remove barriers,” Plank said. He said the overall mission needs to be done in collaboration with the government.
“It’s not something this industry or one company like Roche can achieve alone,” he said.
[By Christoph Schwaiger, Edited by Vasiliki Angouridi, Brian Maguire| Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab]
