Summary
Australia’s national cancer screening programs aim to reduce illness and deaths from cancer through early detection of cancer or precancerous conditions in people who show no symptoms.
Local-level participation rates are presented for three national cancer screening programs: the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, BreastScreen Australia and the National Cervical Screening Program.
Participation rates are available for the 31 Primary Health Network (PHN) areas and more than 300 smaller local areas (SA3s) across Australia, over the 2015 and 2016 calendar years.
The data show variation in participation rates for each program across PHN areas in 2015–2016:
- Participation in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program was 40.9% nationally, with rates ranging from 28.5% (Northern Territory, NT) to 48.6% (Gippsland, Vic) across PHN areas
- Participation in BreastScreen Australia was 55.1% nationally, with rates ranging from 35.2% (Northern Territory, NT) to 61.5% (Northern Queensland, Qld) across PHN areas
- Participation in the National Cervical Screening Program was 55.4% nationally, with rates ranging from 48.0% (Darling Downs and West Moreton, Qld) to 61.8% (Northern Sydney, NSW) across PHN areas.