Intimate stories: Examining Prince George women's awareness about and use of cervical screening services.

The purpose of this research was to examine contributing factors in women's use of cervical screening and to promote cervical health and screening awareness for young and/or vulnerable women in Prince George, B.C. The project was a community-based participatory research project that took place over a six-month period and organized in three stages, including: 1) using questionnaires with women in the community to try to better understand women's lives and lived experiences, 2) facilitating health groups for four months to build deeper relationships with women in the community and, 3) offering two community workshops to promote cervical health and screening. The objectives of the first two stages were to examine women's experiences with health services, and understand their personal her/stories and various health determinants that impacted them. The objective of the stage three was to evaluate how awareness about sexual health topics (i.e., the human papillomavirus (HPV), and cervical health/screening) changed as a result of arts-based and peer-driven interventions. Results from this study indicated that social determinants such as finances and education play an important role in women's awareness about, access to, and use of cervical screening services. Further to this, her/stories of victimization, gendered feelings, feelings of disempowerment, and life circumstances also significantly influenced women's comfort levels with, access to, and use of cervical cancer screening services in Prince George, B.C. --P. iii.