National Bowel Cancer Screening Program monitoring report 2026

To provide a comprehensive picture of national cancer statistics in this report, a range of data sources were used, including AIHW and external data sources. These data sources are described in this appendix.

Australian Burden of Disease Study

The Australian Burden of Disease Study (ABDS) 2024 (AIHW 2024) used burden of disease analysis to measure the impact of 220 diseases and injuries on the health of the Australian population. The study provides a detailed picture of the burden of disease in the population in 2003, 2011, 2015, 2018, and 2024 (with 2024 being projected estimates). It includes estimates of total, fatal, and non-fatal burden for the total Australian population. It also includes national estimates of the contribution made by selected risk factors on the disease burden in Australia.

The ABDS 2018 includes the latest subnational burden of disease estimates, (by state or territory, remoteness area and socioeconomic area).

The ABDS uses and adapts the methods of global studies to produce estimates that are more relevant to the Australian health policy context.

Results from the study provide an important resource for health policy formulation, health service planning, and population health monitoring. The results provide a foundation for further assessments; for example, in relation to health interventions that aim to prevent or treat diabetes and its complications, and disease expenditure.

Full details on the various methods, data sources, and standard inputs used in the ABDS are available in Australian Burden of Disease Study 2018: methods and supplementary material (AIHW 2021).

Australian Cancer Database

All forms of cancer, except basal and squamous cell carcinomas of the skin, are notifiable diseases in each Australian state and territory. Legislation in each jurisdiction requires hospitals, pathology laboratories, and various other institutions to report all cases of cancer to their central cancer registry. An agreed subset of the data collected by these registries is supplied annually to the AIHW, where it is compiled into the Australian Cancer Database (ACD). The ACD used in this report currently contains data on all cases of cancer diagnosed from 1982 to 2021 for all states and territories.

Cancer reporting and registration is a dynamic process, and records in the state and territory cancer registries may be modified if new information is received. As a result, the number of cancer cases reported by the AIHW for any particular year may change slightly over time and may not always align with state and territory reporting for that same year.

The 2022–2025 estimated cancer cases for incidence were derived using a combination of ABS estimated resident populations and Centre for Population projections, as described in the technical notes of Cancer data in Australia (AIHW 2025).

The latest Data Quality Statement for the ACD can be found on the AIHW METEOR website.

National Bowel Cancer Screening Program

This report uses National Cancer Screening Register (NCSR) data (raw data extract as at 6 February 2026) to present statistics on the progression of eligible participants along the screening pathway for those invited into the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP). It covers measures of participation, iFOBT results, and follow‑up investigations and outcomes. However, while data for follow-up investigations should be returned to the NCSR (ACSQHC 2020), this is not mandated by the NBCSP so data are incomplete. Analyses are presented by age, sex, state or territory, remoteness and socioeconomic areas, Indigenous status, preferred language spoken at home, and disability status.

From mid-November 2019, the NBCSP Register data were transitioned from the Department of Human Services to the NCSR. Following the transition, the NCSR is now the sole source of NBCSP data in Australia.

Determining Indigenous status in the NCSR

This report uses both the Person and PersonHistory table in the NCSR to determine a person’s self-identified Indigenous status. Firstly, the most recently reported Indigenous status from Person is used. For those where this value is not stated, any historical Indigenous status values available in the PersonHistory table are used, with a preference to Indigenous over non-Indigenous Australians status if multiple values have been selected in the past.

Reporting of estimated participation by disability status

Due to changes in data completeness by self-reported disability status in NBCSP records prior to migration to the NCSR (in November 2019), estimated participation by disability status cannot be reported in this report.

Improvements to the valid NBCSP invitations count

For data from 2020 onwards, improvements have been made to exclude a number of incorrectly recorded invitations within the NCSR. This includes identifying and excluding prospective invitees without a valid mailing address. A non-valid address may be a result of the NCSR not recognising a current postal address, or a return to sender flag has previously been recorded against the invitee and their given address.

Improvements to the known colonoscopy count

Due to incomplete colonoscopy form return for those having a follow-up diagnostic assessment after a positive screen, this report now supplements colonoscopy form data and MBS claims with Participant follow-up function (PFUF) data. This means data for PIs 3, 4 and 9 from 2021 onwards cannot be compared with previous years.

The PFUF is a system whereby participants who have had a positive screen are contacted by PFUF officers in their jurisdiction if a follow-up diagnostic assessment has not been recorded in the NCSR within a certain period. Any PFUF confirmation of a colonoscopy having occurred is then used in this report to supplement colonoscopy form data and MBS claims (though note that MBS claims prior to 2021 are incomplete in the NCSR). While this can be used to improve the number of colonoscopies known to have taken place for program participants, it does not improve colonoscopy outcome data (that is, the diagnostic findings from these additional colonoscopies are not known).

From 2021 onwards, Bowel abnormality detection results using available assessment and histopathology data only includes colonoscopies known from colonoscopy or histopathology forms, as only colonoscopies from these sources record outcomes. Therefore, these outcome data cannot be compared with previous years.

The Data Quality Statement for the NBCSP can be found on the AIHW METEOR website.

National Death Index

The National Death Index is a database, housed at the AIHW, which contains records of all deaths occurring in Australia since 1980. The data are obtained from the registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages in each state and territory. The National Death Index is designed to facilitate the conduct of epidemiological studies and its use is strictly confined to medical research.

Cancer incidence records from the ACD were linked to the National Death Index and used to calculate the survival and prevalence data presented in this report.

See the Data Quality Statement for the National Death Index for further information.

National Mortality Database

The AIHW National Mortality Database (NMD) contains information supplied by the registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages and the National Coronial Information System – and coded by the ABS – for deaths from 1964 to 2023. Registration of deaths is the responsibility of the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in each state and territory. These data are then collated and coded by the ABS and maintained at the AIHW in the NMD.

In the NMD, both the year in which the death occurred and the year in which it was registered are provided. For the purposes of this report, actual mortality data are shown based on the year the death was registered.

In this report, deaths registered in 2021 and earlier are based on the final version of cause of death data; deaths registered in 2022 are based on the revised version; and deaths registered in 2023 are based on preliminary versions. Revised and preliminary versions are subject to further revision by the ABS.

The 2024–2025 estimates for mortality were based on deaths from the 2014–2023 NMD and were derived using a combination of ABS estimated resident populations and Centre for Population projections, as described in the technical notes of Cancer data in Australia (AIHW 2025).

The data quality statements underpinning the AIHW NMD can be found on the following ABS web pages:

• ABS quality declaration summary for Deaths, Australia
• ABS quality declaration summary for Causes of death, Australia

For more information on the AIHW NMD, see the National Mortality Database.

Lastly, the ABS has noted that there is a high likelihood that many deaths coded to ICD-10 code ‘C26.0 Malignant neoplasms of the intestinal tract, unspecified’ are deaths from colon, sigmoid, rectum, and anus cancers (ABS 2016). Therefore, deaths coded as C26.0 have been included in bowel cancer deaths throughout this report (and in monitoring reports from 2019 onwards).

Population data

Throughout this report, population data were used to derive bowel cancer incidence and mortality rates. The population data were sourced from the ABS using the most up-to-date estimates available at the time of analysis.

To derive its estimates of the resident populations, the ABS uses the 5-yearly Australian Census of Population and Housing data and adjusts them as follows:

• all respondents in the Census are placed in their state or territory, statistical area, and postcode of usual residence; overseas visitors are excluded
• an adjustment is made for people missed in the Census
• Australians temporarily overseas on Census night are added to the usual residence Census count.

Estimated resident populations are then updated each year from the Australian Census data, using indicators of population change, such as births, deaths, and net migration.
More information is available from the ABS website.

The projected incidence and mortality rates cited for 2025 in this report will sometimes differ from the rates that would occur if the Centre for Population data were used to calculate rates.

For the Indigenous Australian incidence and mortality comparisons in this report, the most recently released ABS Indigenous estimated resident populations (based on the 2021 Census of Population and Housing) were used.