National Cervical Screening Program monitoring report 2025

Data used in the report are derived from multiple sources and are summarised in the table below.

† Australian Immunisation Register linked to National Cancer Screening Register to assign HPV vaccination status to cervical screening participants.

National Cancer Screening Register

Data for most performance indicators were calculated using National Cancer Screening Register data, according to definitions and data specifications in the National Cervical Screening Program data dictionary version 1.3.

The National Cancer Screening Register (NCSR) is the source of NCSP data in Australia, following the migration and consolidation of state and territory cervical screening register data. This change may impact comparisons with previous NCSP reporting, particularly for participants who screen in a different state or territory to which they reside. 

The NCSR is intended to be a complete record of all cervical tests, including HPV, cytology, colposcopy, and histology. Pathology labs and colposcopists are required under the NCSR Rules 2017 to notify all cervical test data to the NCSR within 14 days. Any test data not notified to the NCSR will not be included in the NCSR or in the data included in this report. 

The NCSR is a live database, which means that data are continually updated over time.
As such, data extracted at varying times differ, with later data likely to have a greater level
of completeness. 

NCSR data in this report were sourced from the July 2025 release of the raw data extract (RDE) (NCSR RDE 11/07/2025).

The Data Quality Statement for National Cancer Screening Program data can be found on the AIHW website at:

National Cervical Screening Program screening data 2020–2024; Quality statement

AIHW 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 2020 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 latest Data Quality Statement for the 2021 ACD can be found on the AIHW website at:

Australian Cancer Database, 2021; Quality Statement

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.

The Data Quality Statement for the National Death Index can be found at:

National Death Index (NDI), Data Quality Statement

AIHW National Mortality Database

The AIHW National Mortality Database (NMD) contains information provided by the registries of births, deaths and marriages and the National Coronial Information System (coded by the ABS), for deaths from 1964 to 2023. The Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in each state and territory is responsible for the registration of deaths. 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 death occurred and the year in which it was registered are provided. For the purposes of this report, actual mortality data are based on the year the death occurred, except for the most recent year (2023), for which the number of people whose death was registered is used. Previous investigation has shown that the year of death and its registration coincide for the most part. However, in some instances, deaths at the end of each calendar year may not be registered until the following year. Thus, year‑of‑death information for the latest available year is generally an underestimate of the actual number of deaths that occurred in that year.

In this report, deaths registered in 2020 and earlier are based on the final version of cause of death data; deaths registered in 2021 are based on the revised version; and deaths registered in 2022 and 2023 are based on the preliminary version. Revised and preliminary versions are subject to further revision by the ABS.

The data quality statements underpinning the AIHW NMD can be found at:

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

For more information on the AIHW NMD, see and Deaths data.

Deaths in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

The ABS Death Registrations collection identifies a death as being of an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person where the deceased is recorded as Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, or both, on the Death Registration Form. Since 2007, the Indigenous status of the deceased has also been derived from the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death for South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory. For New South Wales and Victoria, the Indigenous status of the deceased is derived from the Death Registration Form only. If the Indigenous status reported in this form does not agree with that in the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death, an identification from either source that the deceased was an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person is given preference over identifying them as non‑Indigenous.

ABS population data

Throughout this report, population data were used to derive rates of participation in cervical screening, cervical cancer incidence and cervical cancer mortality. The population data were sourced from the ABS estimated resident populations.

To derive its estimates of the resident populations, the ABS uses the 5-yearly Census of Population and Housing data, adjusted 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 persons 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 Census data, using indicators of population change, such as births, deaths, and net migration. More information is available from the ABS website.

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

Hysterectomy fractions

Hysterectomy fractions represent the proportion of people with an intact uterus (and cervix) at a particular age, and are used to adjust the population for participation calculations. This is because people who have had a hysterectomy with their cervix removed are not at risk of cervical cancer and thus do not require screening. Since a substantial proportion (20%–30%) of middle-aged and older people in Australia do not have an intact cervix, the female population is adjusted to remove these people, so that true participation in cervical screening can be more accurately estimated.

The National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD) is based on summary records of patient separations, referring to episodes of care in public and private hospitals; it allows us to view relatively complete hysterectomy numbers and rates for financial years from the mid-1990s. These data were used, with projections forward and backward where required, to generate estimates of current hysterectomy prevalence for females aged 25–74. Published hysterectomy incidence trends, as well as data from the 1995, 2001 and 2004–05 NHS, were drawn on to ensure accuracy in assumptions.

The results of these combined approaches are robust hysterectomy fractions that reflect both historical and current hysterectomy trends, which can be used in the calculation of participation in cervical screening for the most recent participation data.

Source: AIHW analysis of the National Hospital Morbidity Database.