Abstract:
Cervical cancer is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in women particularly those people who have risky sexual behavior with Human papillomavirus and living in low socio-economic status such as hill tribe people. Hill tribe people are living under the national poverty line in Thailand and become a vulnerable population for cervical cancer. A cross sectional study aimed to estimate the prevalence and to determine the factors associated with abnormal cervical cell among the Hmong and Mien hill tribe women lived in Phayao province, Thailand. A validated questionnaire and Pap smear test result form were used for data collections. Logistic regression was used to determine the associations between factors and abnormal cervical cell. Totally of 450 Hmong and Mien women were recruited into the analysis. The overall prevalence of abnormal cervical cell in the study subjects was 2.21% (10/450); 1.11% were ASC-US, 0.44% were ASC-H, 0.44% were CIN I and 0.22% were CIN II. The point prevalence rate among population at risk of hilltribe was 490.68/100,000 population (10/2,038). After control for confounding variables, two variables were significantly associated with abnormal cervical cell; a) women who had number of partners ≥ 4 persons had a 7.09 times (95%CI=1.85-27.17) greater chance of having abnormal cervical cell than those who had number of partner < 4 persons. Women whose husband had number of partners ≥ 4 persons had a 5.63 times (95%CI=1.51-20.90) greater chance of having abnormal cervical cell than those who had number of partner < 4 persons. Number of partners is significant associated with abnormal cervical cell among the Hmong and Mien women. Health interventions regarding safe sex should be promoted in the hill tribe people.