Cervical Cancer Risk Assessor wins Rep. Jake Auchincloss’s 2021 Congressional App Challenge in Massachusetts’s Fourth District

When asked what inspired the creation of Cervical Cancer Risk Assessor, the student said, “There are 14,000 cases of cervical cancer each year in the U.S. Sixty percent of these women were not screened for cervical cancer, and 22% did not follow-up appropriately after an abnormal screening test result. Therefore, the vast majority of cases would be prevented through proper screening and management. However, the annual number of cervical cancer cases has shown no improvement in the last 20 years. In fact, Congress has identified stagnant cervical cancer survival rates as one of its top three priorities for women’s health in 2021. The aim of this app is to increase knowledge and understanding of cervical cancer screening, and enable an individual to easily understand and manage their test results. My mother, a gynecologist, provided the idea for the app, and used her experience to optimize accuracy and clarity, and I produced all the coding and functionality. The information available on the static pages of the website covers various topics of cervical cancer screening in detail, and the Personalized Risk Assessment provides as much information as possible to the user about their specific test results, including pre-cancer risk values and recommended management. The app has the potential to be very helpful and influential to many women and their healthcare providers, and it is a project of which I am very proud.”