The app is available in 12 languages. It is part of a program that aims to convince immigrants to enroll in breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening programs.
The Marche region in central Italy launched the new project on Tuesday. The goal: To maker sure immigrants are aware of the importantance of screenings for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer.
The project is called "The service takes care of you." It is the only one of its kind in Italy. It was presented at a press conference in Ancona by Marche Governor Luca Ceriscioli and health official Lucia Di Furia.
An app that shows you where to go for screenings
It includes an app that is available 12 languages -- Italian, Albanian, Romanian, Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, English, French, Ukrainian, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali.
The app can be downloaded on phones that run on Android (under the name "Il servizio sanitario si prende cura di te", which means "the healthcare service takes care of you") or iOS (under the name "Ssrxte Screening"). It provides a list of addresses and telephone contacts for different services, an explanation of what they offer and an interactive map to locate them.
The goal: Get more people to screenings
The initiative aims to "widen the population that is being screened, improve the healthcare system and save money because intervening when a disease is in the early stages is one thing, doing it when it is at an advanced stage is another," said the governor.
He emphasized that immigrants would be able to "find in the public healthcare system a cost-free opportunity" to receive cancer prevention screenings.
According to a survey carried out by the region's observatory on healthcare inequality, 42.7% of the local immigrant population has so far been screened for cervical cancer, 54.4% for breast cancer and 36.5% for colorectal cancer.