AIHW - National Cancer Screening - Participation in the National Cervical Screening Program (PHN) 2014-2016

This dataset presents the footprint of participation statistics in the National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP) for women aged 20 to 69, by age group. The NCSP began in 1991. It aims to reduce cervical cancer cases, illness and deaths in Australia. The data spans the years of 2014-2016 and is aggregated to 2015 Department of Health Primary Health Network (PHN) areas, based on the 2011 Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS).

Cancer is one of the leading causes of illness and death in Australia. Cancer screening programs aim to reduce the impact of selected cancers by facilitating early detection, intervention and treatment. Australia has three cancer screening programs:

• BreastScreen Australia

• National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP)

• National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP)

The National cancer screening programs participation data presents the latest cancer screening participation rates and trends for Australia's 3 national cancer screening programs. The data has been sourced from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) analysis of National Bowel Cancer Screening Program register data, state and territory BreastScreen Australia register data and state and territory cervical screening register data.

For further information about this dataset, visit the data source:Australian Institute of Health and Welfare - National Cancer Screening Programs Participation Data Tables.

Please note:

• AURIN has spatially enabled the original data using the Department of Health - PHN Areas.

• Participation in the NCSP for this report was defined as the percentage of women in the population aged 20-69 who had at least one Pap test in a 2-year period. Participation rates were calculated using the average of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Estimated Resident Population (ERP) for females aged 20-69 for the relevant 2-year reporting period adjusted for the estimated proportion of women who have had a hysterectomy.

• A PHN was assigned to women using a postcode to PHN correspondence. Because these are based only on postcode, these data will be less accurate than those published by individual states and territories.

• Postcode is used for mailing purposes and may not reflect where a woman resides.

• Some postcodes (and hence women) cannot be attributed to a PHN and therefore these women were excluded from the analysis. This is most noticeable in the Northern Territory but affects all states and territories to some degree.

• Totals may not sum due to rounding.

• The time period of some PHN data presented is prior to the initiation of PHNs, which were in established in June 2015.

• Some duplication may occur where the same test is reported to the cervical screening register in two or more jurisdictions. This may lead to erroneous results when focusing on smaller geographical areas. This may affect border areas more than others.

• Data are preliminary and subject to change.

• The 2014-2015 period covers 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2015, and the 2015-2016 period covers 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2016.

• PHN205 Murray includes Albury, NSW.