Impact of social determinants of health on immigrant women’s cancer prevalence, outcomes, and survival experiences: narrative review

Abstract

Background and Objective: This paper aims to review the social determinants of health to comprehend the cancer survival lived experiences of immigrant females. It can serve as a guideline for Canadian healthcare providers who wish to formulate an intervention for improving the quality of life of immigrant females who are cancer survivors. The intervention is formulated based on various factors associated with cancer development, health outcomes, and survival lived experiences of these immigrants. Methods: This review was based on the review of different databases available in the literature including PubMed, Science Direct, MEDLINE, and EBSCOhost databases. It also employed search engines like Google Scholar and Google Engine to search the relevant websites and governmental and non-governmental reports. Key Content and Findings: The results indicate strong effects of social determinants of health on cancer survivor immigrant women. The disparity in survival outcomes and survival experiences of different immigrant women may be attributed to the difference in their cultural, educational, and socioeconomic status as well as disparity in social support, and health service availability. Conclusions: It is concluded that the lived experiences of cancer survivor female immigrants in Canada must be additionally explored to enable the experts to come up with more effective interventions based on social determinants of health for bringing improvement in the overall Canadian healthcare system.