Cervical screening (PI22)

This indicator is the proportion of female First Nations regular clients aged 25–74 who have not had a hysterectomy and who had a cervical screening test within the previous 5 years.

It is collected for females in age groups:

  • 25–34
  • 35–44
  • 45–54
  • 55–64
  • 65–69
  • 70–74.

There have been changes to the specification of this indicator over time. For more information see Interpreting nKPI data.

Why cervical screening is important

The National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP), which aims to reduce mortality from cervical cancer, recommends 5-yearly cervical screening for women and people with a cervix aged 25–74.

First Nations women generally experience lower levels of participation in cervical screening and a higher burden from cervical cancer than non-Indigenous women (AIHW 2024).

At June 2025, 51% of (or around 53,800) female First Nations regular clients aged 25–74 who have not had a hysterectomy had a cervical screening test within the previous 5 years (Figure 26).

The data visualisation below (Figure 26) shows, for each collection period from December 2020 to June 2025, the proportion of female First Nations regular clients aged 25–74 who have not had a hysterectomy and who had a cervical screening test within the previous 5 years. Select by either:

  • organisation type
  • remoteness
  • state/territory
  • age group

to see data for that breakdown.

Data tables supporting this visualisation are available at Data.

Figure 26: Cervical screening within the previous 5 years by collection period

Overall, the proportion of female First Nations regular clients aged 25–74 who have not had a hysterectomy and who had a cervical screening test within the previous 5 years generally increased between December 2022 and June 2025.

Overall, the proportion of female First Nations regular clients aged 25–74 who have not had a hysterectomy and who had a cervical screening test within the previous 5 years generally increased between December 2022 and June 2025.

Notes

  1. A break is included to separate out the periods most affected by voluntary reporting and the peak of COVID-19 and associated emergency response measures. This break, however, is not a clean break as each indicator in the nKPI collection has an assigned time frame (a reference period) as part of its specification. For this indicator, which has a reference period of 5 years, data in collection periods for December 2022 (covering 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2022), June 2023 (covering 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2023), December 2023 (covering 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2023), June 2024 (covering 1 July 2019 to 31 June 2024), December 2024 (covering 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2024) and June 2025 (covering 1 July 2020 to 31 June 2025) still overlap with the peak of COVID-19 and associated emergency response measure. For more information see Comparisons over time.
  2. The linear trend lines provide a general impression of the direction of the data. Caution should be taken interpreting trends with less than 5 data points. See also Figure 20 for trends for selected data.
  3. For more information, including on interpreting changes over time, see Technical notes.

Reference

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2024) National Cervical Screening Program monitoring report 2024, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 17 October 2025. 

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