Common Determinant and Prevention Strategies of Cancer in the Pacific Countries: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide which accounts for 8.2 million deaths each year. Cancer is also one of the important public health priorities in Pacific. Developing preventive strategies can help people to reduce the burden of this disease. As there is no any systematic review done till now, this syntactic review study is aimed to understand the common determinants of cancer and the preventive strategies in Pacific. This study applied the Cochrane library guideline of conducting systematic review. Five more frequent databases were used to find relevant studies. Using keywords which were developed based on the aim of the study, and also inclusion and exclusion criteria, articles were searched and reviewing the articles was conducted by two independent coders. After removing duplicated studies, three steps ware applied to achieve the final studies. A data extension sheet was developed and the data were analyzed using a descriptive statistical analysis. Overall, 36 studies were included in the study. USA Pacific countries such as Hawaii had highest number of studies (44%) which followed by South Pacific (33.4%) and Asia Pacific (16.6%) countries. Majority of studies (86%) were applied the quantitative design and 14% were used the qualitative design. The common determinants for cancer were categorized into three areas including the services factors, detection and treatment factors, and individual factors. The most common prevention strategies for cancer were improving health care system such as screening, intensive follow up and surveillance, health education and awareness, policy implementation, and immunization. The results of this study highlighted the most common determinants of cancer and the preventive strategies in Pacific. Considering the results of this study, the health specialist in PICs needs to address all these identified common determinants of cancer among cancer patients from the pacific in the past in order to come up with new strategies or prevention for cancer in the future.