AIHW - National Cancer Screening - Participation in BreastScreen (SA3) 2014-2016

This dataset presents the footprint of participation statistics in BreastScreen Australia for women ages 50 to 74, by age group. The national breast cancer screening program, BreastScreen Australia began in 1991. It aims to reduce illness and death from breast cancer using screening mammography for early detection of unsuspected breast cancer in women. The data spans the years of 2014-2016 and is aggregated to Statistical Area Level 3 (SA3) geographic boundaries from 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.

• Participation rates represent the percentage of women in the population aged 50-74 screened by BreastScreen Australia over 2 calendar years. The population denominator was the average of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Estimated Resident Population (ERP) for females aged 50-74 within the relevant geographical area for the relevant 2-year reporting period.

• An SA3 was assigned to women using a postcode to SA3 correspondence. Because these are based only on postcode, these data will be less accurate than those published by individual states and territories.

• Some postcodes (and hence women) cannot be attributed to an SA3 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.

• SA3s with a numerator less than 20 or a denominator less than 100 have been suppressed.

• SA3 data for the Blue Mountains - South, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Cotter - Namadgi, Fyshwick - Piallago - Hume, Illawarra Catchment Reserve, Jervis Bay, and Lord Howe Island were excluded due to reliability concerns from low numbers in these regions.

• Totals may not sum due to rounding.

• BreastScreen Australia changed its target age group from 50-69 years to 50-74 years from July 2013; participation is reported for both the previous and current target age groups to allow comparison of trends with previously reported data.

• Data are preliminary and subject to change.

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