For the National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP), participation refers to the proportion of people aged 25–74 who screened in a 5-year period.
From 1 December 2017, the NCSP changed to 5-yearly cervical screening for those aged 25–74. Participation is therefore measured over 5 calendar years to align with the recommended screening interval.
Explore the latest data in the visualisation below.
Preliminary participation data for the 5-year cervical screening round is available for the first time since the program's roll-out in December 2017. These data are from January 2018 to December 2022. Prior to this, only interim data was available for estimates to be calculated.
According to the 2018–2022 preliminary data:
- Almost 4.7 million people aged 25–74 who were eligible for cervical screening participated in the NCSP.
- The national participation rate was 68% of the eligible population.
Participation by age
According to the 2018–2022 preliminary data:
- People aged 25–29 had the highest participation rate (79%).
- People aged 70–74 had the lowest estimated participation rate (35%).
Note that lower participation rates are expected among people aged 70–74 as they have re-entered the target age group under the renewed NCSP after having left the previous program after age 69.
According to the 2018–2022 preliminary data:
- The estimated participation rate among people aged 25–74 was the highest in the Australian Capital Territory (71%).
- After adjusting for difference in population age structure across the states and territories, the age-standardised participation rate in the Australian Capital Territory was 1.04 times higher than the national participation rate (71% and 68% respectively) with a difference of 3 percentage points between the two rates.