2022 IB Diploma Extended Essays

Local manifestation – Justification for cancer type

Though many types of cancer screenings were paused, the cancer type I chose was breast

cancer as it was the most personal to me and my family. During the pandemic, I had noticed

that non-essential appointments were transferred to online phone calls. From personal

experience, I discovered that the quality of treatment significantly decreased. Physiologically

speaking, there is a positive correlation between the delay in diagnosis and breast cancer

severity as later diagnoses are more likely to identify cancers at later stages (W. L. Lu, 2009).

Due to the awareness of breast cancer and extensive research and statistics conducted on this

cancer type, the data on the effect of SARS-CoV-2 on breast cancer was the most frequent

amongst other cancers. This cancer type was elected to ensure that there was sufficient

evidence to answer my research question.

Justification for selected countries

The countries selected possessed similar economic factors in order to control variables

influenced by wealth and economic development. Moreover, contrasting health care models

were elected from economically comparable countries to emphasise approaches to breast

cancer screening management during the pandemic. Belgium and Switzerland operate under a

Bismarck health care model where most hospitals tend to be private rather than public or

government run. On the contrary, the UK is run under the NHS which operates with more

government involvement in healthcare.

Regarding Belgium and Switzerland both countries continued mammogram screening

services in some parts of their countries through the pandemic. Both ranked top 15 on the

Human Development Index (HDI) scale, Belgium and Switzerland have a HDI of 0.931 and

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