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.
Participation in the new 5-year program cannot be properly reported until there are 5 years of data available. In the interim, estimates have been calculated. The latest of these is a 4-year estimate of participation for 2018–2021.
Explore the latest data in the visualisation below.
According to the 2018–2021 interim data :
- Almost 4.3 million of the 6.9 million people aged 25–74 who were eligible for cervical screening participated in the NCSP.
- This was an interim estimated 4-year participation rate of 62%.
Participation by age
According to the 2018–2021 interim data:
- People aged 45–49 had the highest estimated participation rate (67%).
- People aged 70–74 had the lowest estimated participation rate (31%).
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 2018–2021 interim data:
- The estimated participation rate among people aged 25–74 was the highest in the Australian Capital Territory (67%).
- After adjusting for difference in population age structure across the states and territories, the estimated age-standardised participation rate in the Australian Capital Territory was 6% higher than the national participation rate (67% and 63% respectively).