NUR3101 Assignment: Breast Cancer in Canada - Public Health

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of breast cancer in Canada, addressing it as a significant public health challenge. It begins by outlining Canada's strategic approach to cancer control, emphasizing the involvement of the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control (CSCC). The report delves into the social determinants of health (SDOH), including socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and access to healthcare, and how these factors influence breast cancer incidence, diagnosis, and survival rates. It examines the availability, accessibility, acceptability, affordability, and cultural adequacy of health services in Canada, highlighting barriers to effective care. The report explores the epidemiology of breast cancer in Canada, providing statistics on incidence and mortality. It then analyzes the crucial role of primary health care (PHC) nurses in addressing this health issue, including their involvement in prevention, early detection, and patient support. The report also highlights the importance of cultural competence in nursing practice to improve healthcare outcomes. The report uses evidence-based research to support its claims and provides a detailed overview of breast cancer in Canada, addressing the challenges and potential solutions from a public health perspective.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author Note

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Introduction
The concept of the primary health care is the approach of the whole of the society towards well
being and health that is centered over the preferences and the needs of the families, individuals
and the communities. According to WHO, the context primary health care is rooted within the
commitment towards the equity and social justice and within the recognition of the basic rights
for the highest attainable standards of the health as enshrined in Article 25 of UDHR (Primary
health care. 2019). The majority of a person's health requirements are covered throughout life by
primary health care (PHC); This involves well-being that is physical, emotional and social and is
centred instead of centred on illness (Lohmann et al., 2017). The PHC strategy involves health
promotion, prevention and treatment, therapy, restoration and palliative treatment. PHC is an
entire community strategy.
The primary strategy for health care involves three elements; to address the health requirements
of people through life ; to address the broader determinants of health through multisectoral
policies and measures; and to empower people, relatives and groups to take charge in their own
wellness (Primary health care, 2019).
In the current era, the entire world id endangered with innumerable types and instance of
diseases. The breast cancer being one of the most discussed health challenges in the current era.
Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in females in both the advanced and the less
sophisticated globe in the course of epidemiological studies linked to breast cancer. More than
508 000 females around the world were reported to have died of breast cancer in 2011. The
aetiology of Breast cancer is complicated. There are really no one, but many causes of breast
cancer. There are not one but several types of breast cancer. As the most prevalent invasive
malignancy and the second most frequent cause of death from cancer in females, breast cancer is

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significantly influenced by the health of the public. Besides, breast cancer has an enormous
effect on general women's health and merits the science attention it has, due to the countless
impacts on the quality of life and the impact on households. The assignment will argue regrading
the health challenge, breast cancer in the country, Canada.
Body
Part I
Canadian strategy for addressing breast cancer includes the involvement and the decision of the
council. The CCCS (Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control ) Council is a broad multi-stakeholder
group from the leading cancer organizations in Canada. The CSCC objectives are: to decrease
cancer-diagnosed Canadians; to improve cancer quality of life; and to decrease the probability of
cancer death. Inclusive, embedded and thorough leadership approaches to healthcare, which
cover the complete continuum of cancer control, are taken in Canada's Cancer Control Strategy
(CCCS). It uses the strength of the governmental and provincial healthcare system in Canada
through the creation of pan-Canadian networks of specialists for the promotion of intervention
and understanding. The data and instruments needed for taking educated choices on cancer
danger and on cancer control will be provided by an expertise transfer and risk management
platform in governments, non-governmental organizations and private Canada.
The CSCC – pan-Canadian intervention on Cancer Elimination is one of the main strategies in
the elimination of breast cancer.

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Source - (The Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control: A Cancer Plan for Canada, 2019)
Social determinants of health
SDOH seems to be the complicated conditions that affect their health when people are
born and reside. It includes abstract variables like political, socioeconomic, as well as cultural
structures and site-specific conditions, including affordable healthcare or even education
systems, supportive environment, excellently-designed communities and healthy eating
accessibility (Gakunga et al., 2019). This definition of the health determinants of society is given
by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The description says further that "the conditions
under which individuals are born, raised, lived, employed and aged are defined by the allocation
of cash, authority and assets at worldwide, domestic and local level." (Social determinants of
health, 2019) These social situations generate societal stratification and lead to health
inequalities between distinct social and financial communities, race and race.

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The health economic determinants examined in regards to the incidence, diagnostic phase, and
survival of breast cancer include the socioeconomic status of revenue, education, disadvantages
in neighbourhoods, poverty, racial profiling, social support and the social network (Liede et al.,
2016). Medical mistrust, immigration, age, insufficient accommodation, food insecurity and
cultural considerations, like access to health facilities in the neighbourhood, are other cultural
causes of health. Socioeconomic variables affect breast cancer hazard. Breast cancer levels are
tending to be favourable with socioeconomic status throughout all race / ethnic groups. The
lower socioeconomic situation, however, is linked in turn to an enhanced danger of invasive
premenopausal breast cancer, an early diagnostic phase, and lower health (Lemieux and Audet,
2018). The socioeconomic status, ethnicity, schooling, census-level poverty and access to health
insurance and preventive care present well-documented disparities in breast cancer survival.
Poverty is connected to other factors relating to late diagnosis of breast cancer and more reduced
survival, such as inadequate health insurance, lack of primary care doctors and poor access to
healthcare.
5A – The availability, accessibility, acceptability, affordability and cultural adequacy of the
health services system in Canada are the main reasons contributing to Canadian women's second
leading cause of cancer mortality.
 Availability – Most of the women from the community group do not get to avail the
health services and the proper treatment for breast cancer,
 Accessibility - Furthermore the lack of adequate access to medicine and nutrition's
together with food are influencing the disease
 Acceptability - often cancer is accepted as a communicable disease which is not taken y
the society, hence remain untreated by many (Vahabi et al., 2016).

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 Affordability – Due to the high end cost of the Canadian health system regrading the
diagnosis of breast cancer, often most of the women avoid to treat it.
 Cultural appropriateness - The cultural barriers and the stereotypes are regarding breast
and cancer on it makes a barrier for women to diagnose and treat it.
Causes of the health problem that is breast cancer are many fold. Most cancers of the breast
occur in women. Women develop breast cancer mainly because of their breast cells being
exposed to the estrogen and progesterone of women's hormones. These hormones, particularly
estrogen, are linked to breast cancer and promote the development of some breast cancers. Some
of the major causes of the breast cancer in Canada are personal history of breast cancer, genetic
conditions, dense breasts, hormonal replacement theory, alcohol addiction, lack of physical
activity, intake of excessive oral contraceptives and exposure to ionizing radiations.
In Canadian females, breast cancer is the most frequent cancer except for non-melanoma of the
skin.
 In 2017, it was reported that approximately 26,300 Canadian females are infected with
and 5,000 die from breast disease.
 The number of fresh instances of disease for breast cancer is around 26% and 13% of
Canadian females suffering from all cancers.
 One out of eight females in their lifetime are forecast to develop breast cancer; 1 out of
35 will die of breast cancer.
 In 2019, approximately 157,360 females had breast cancer in Canada or survived it. This
implies that in ten years before 2009, one out of 107 Canadian females was diagnosed
with breast cancer.

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• Nearly all breast tumours begin with adenocarcinomas in the glands of the breast. In the
ducts (ductal carcinoma) or lobules (lobular carcinoma), organisms may initiate
cancerous cells. Ductal carcinomas represent around 90% of all In vitro breast
carcinomas and 70% of all aggressive breast cancers and are the most common form of
breast disease.
Source - Boyd et al., (2018)

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Epidemiology
In the context of the Canada, the survival levels of breast cancer differ considerably and range
between 80% of the total global cases of breast cancer (Sak, 2017). The epidemiology of breast
cancer in Canada among women highlights the reason behind this chronic and life threatening
disease
For many years, various risk factors have been identified for breast cancer. It is the world's most
common cause of death from cancer in females. The levels around the globe differ by five times,
but in the areas with previously poor disease prices, they are rising. Many of the risk variables
created are associated with estrogen. The risk in postmenopausal females is enhanced by early
menarchy, late menopause and obesity; and prospective studies have shown that the enhanced
risk is correlated with elevated levels of endogenous oestradiole (Boyd et al., 2018).
Part II
Role of primary health care nurse in Canada
The primary health care nurses in Canada plays a very important role in helping to solve the
health challenge of breast cancer. PHC nurses are interactively involved as members of an
interdisciplinary team throughout all elements of combating cancer in Canada (Wegrzyn et al.,
2017). A goodly trained PHC nurse provides medical support and health promotion, risk
assessments, and cancer care. The primary focus and the role of the PHC nurse is the provision
of cancer treatment and to care primarily for cancer-prone individuals.

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In sophisticated exercise, education, and scientists, PHC nurses have masters and doctoral
training. In chronic disease avoidance and governance, primary healthcare (PHC) nursing
measures have a significant role. PHC role offers a strategy coordinating multidisciplinary
facilities and promises to provide greater access to care and better governance of all elements of
health care. Patients are helped by health care facilities including screening programs, learning,
preventative care, clinical support and self-management to know how they can decrease their risk
for chronic illness and how they can manage their disease better by the PHC nurses.
PHC nurses have many essential role in cancer control over the entire continuum; however,
nurses are not fully capable in every institutions. In its Global Action Plan on NCDs, the WHO
recommended that states contribute to the prevention and control, including the removal of
barriers to that contribution, in the scope of the practice of nursing and associated health care
professionals (Rice et al., 2016). The WHO has offered numerous opportunities to maximize the
effects of PHC training nurses on the management of the burden of cancer. Intimate awareness
about patient communities makes nurses an evident partner in oncology experts to deal with this
category of diseases ' growing public health burden. Trained PHC nurses could respond to risks
associated with cancer for general health such as tobacco, obesity and cancer in local fields.
Prevention: the central role of PHC nurses
The diagnoses of cancer could be prevented with reduced risk variables. These are the use of
tobacco, dietary deficiencies, low physical activity, alcohol consumption, work and carcinogenic
environmental conditions and exposure to radiation; hepatitis B and C and HPV vaccines; and
prevention of Helicobacter Pylori and schistosomiasis infection. Because of their availability,

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and their active participation in the society, nurses, have a unique position to effectively execute
preventive actions both at personal and group stage (Ahern, Gardner & Courtney, 2015)
For Canada to find actual methods of providing affordable medical facilities, it is needed to
concentrate on the individual (Gakunga et al., 2019). As an immediate services supplier, the PHC
nurse's function is unique in its lifelong connection with clients and relatives in all activities
linked to health and disease. This sort of patient-centred communication gives genuine
importance and legitimacy in the development of care transformation schemes and procedures.
Reflection
The growth of cultural competencies in nursing requires initiation of care of patients from
various cultural backgrounds. Cultural competencies are essential for reducing health inequalities
and improving access, according to the National Institutes of Health, to quality healthcare which
is sensitive to patient requirements (Monfared et al., 2017). To provide culturally delicate
treatment, PHC nurses must react to altering patient demographics. In acute care units, that need
is evidently apparent. The role of the PHC nurses is to explain patients regarding their health
care measures for prevention of breast cancer, for whom the natural language isn't English. The
role of the PHC nurses needs to align with cultural competencies that supports the aim of patient
recovery from the chronic disease. Patients should be asked about any alternative healing
methods they use. The PHC nurse's perception of the role of males and females in patient culture
is another illustration of cultural competencies (Abdelsattar, Hendren & Wong, 2017). The
primary way that PHC nurses attain artistic skills of care to prevent breast cancer is to win

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customer’s confidence to a greater extent and strengthen the bond between the nurse and the
patient. This demands sensitivity and efficient communication, both verbally and nonverbally.
Conclusion
Thus it can be summarized from the above that PHC nurses should prevent generalizing a patient
into a particular ethnic or cultural group unintentionally, depending on such features as external
appearance, ethnicity, nation of origin, or indicated spiritual predilection (Penman-Aguilar et al.,
2016). Stereotyping is "an over-simplified understanding, view or faith in certain aspects of a
particular person or group of individuals that must be prevented.
Currently, Canadians want good health care coverage. They must also be aware that the scheme
needs to fulfil their potential health and demographic requirements (Thornton et al., 2016). The
required health scheme requires a new strategy, cost-effective and able to guarantee quality and

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affordable health facilities across the entire care scheme to satisfy their health challenges and
requirements.

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