Abstract:
Policy mapping is used to provide evidence on effective interventions and highlight the
necessary refinements of health policies. The goal of this work is to carry out legal mapping to identify
and assess health policies for the prevention and management of cervical cancer in East African
countries. Cervical cancer, as a largely preventable disease, is the cause of most cancer deaths among
women in East African countries. Legal documents were searched uniformly from government
websites, national cancer institute sites, and international and national legal databases, then the
data were analyzed using the Nvivo12 software package. The sample of 24 documents includes
policies, plans, guidelines, acts, and strategies from 12 East African countries. The emerging themes
were screening, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, challenges, and mitigation efforts. A few binding
policies, a significant discrepancy to international standards in at least four countries, patchy screening
registries, and a lack of prophylactic vaccination against human papillomavirus incorporation into
national immunization schedules are the main findings. This paper underlies the role of law in health
and the need for transparent legal and regulatory tools to achieve a further reduction in cervical
cancer mortality in East African countries.
