Norway has an organized national screening program against cervical cancer, where all women 25-69 years are recommended to take a screening test every third year. The overall coverage, and particularly among the youngest women, aged 25 to 29, is unsatisfactory. When the program started in 1995, the attendance in this age group was at its peak, at 73,0 percent. The coverage rate has decreased continuously since, to an all-time low in 2012, at 52,7 percent. By connecting different actors concerned with the low coverage, the idea was to create a yearly campaign using different media channels, but with particular emphasize on social media networks. Involved in the campaign were: The Norwegian Cancer society, Det Nye, a glossy magazine for young women and The Norwegian Cancer Registry.
A national campaign #sjekkdeg (“get checked”) was launched in September 2015 after a young blogger diagnosed with cervical cancer started blogging about her disease in March 2015. The campaign focused on young women and included: short films featuring young, female Norwegian celebrities, editorial pieces in the magazine Det Nye, press coverage in other mainstream media, blog and social media activity with the hashtag #sjekkdeg. The campaign was followed up with a new campaign September 2016. The number of registered screening tests, and 3.5 year screening coverage by age, were calculated from the national screening databases at the Cancer Registry of Norway.
By the end of 2016 the number of registered screening tests among women in the age group 25 to 29 increased by 10 886. The 3.5 year screening coverage, increased from 55,9 percent in 2014 to of 62,1 percent at the end of 2016. There was also an increase in 34 109 women attending screening in the whole screening population between 25-69 years from 66,5 to 68,8 percent.
The raised awareness on cervical cancer in Norway has contributed to increased attendance to the screening program. It is reasonable to think that a large proportion of this increase can be attributed to the #sjekkdeg-campaign. This campaign indicates that unconventional thinking can be useful, and that employing new media channels that reaches the target audience directly can affect the screening coverage.
The results from the two years of the campaign has ensured the parties in the collaboration that the work should continue, with new campaign periods.