Breast Cancer Screening Participation in Victoria: 2015-2017, 2016-2018, 2017-2019, 2018-2020, 2019-2021 and 2020-2022 (financial years)
1. Definition: Breast cancer screening two-years participation in financial years is calculated using:
- Numerator: Number of women aged 50-74 screened by BreastScreen Victoria (BSV) in the two-year reporting periods. Participation data includes participants with Victorian residential addresses only and excludes participants who received private mammography. The two-year reporting periods are based on the financial years (e.g., 01/07/2015-30/06/2017).
- Denominator: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) estimated resident population (ERP) in Victoria.
2. 'Women' in this report refers to women and trans and gender diverse people.
3. Data sources:
- BSV data tables provided July 2020 - 2015-2017, 2016-2018, 2017-2019
- BSV data tables provided June 2021 - 2018-2020
- BSV data tables provided August 2022- 2019-2021
- BSV data tables provided August 2023- 2020-2022
4. Participation data is participants screened (by financial years):
- 2015-2017 refers to 01/07/2015 to 30/06/2017.
- 2016-2018 refers to 01/07/2016 to 30/06/2018.
- 2017-2019 refers to 01/07/2017 to 30/06/2019.
- 2018-2020 refers to 01/07/2018 to 30/06/2020.
- 2019-2021 refers to 01/07/2019 to 30/06/2021.
- 2020-2022 refers to 01/07/2020 to 30/06/2022.
5. Population data is sourced from ABS estimated resident population (ERP) data:
- 2015 - 2017 - Reference period 2016 as at August 2018 (Final ERP).
- 2016 - 2018 - Reference period 2017 as at August 2019 (Revised ERP).
- 2017 - 2019 - Reference period 2018 as at August 2019 (Preliminary ERP).
- 2018 - 2020 - Reference period 2019 as at August 2020 (Preliminary ERP).
- 2019 - 2021 - Reference period 2020 as at August 2021 (Preliminary ERP).
- 2020 - 2022 - Reference period 2021 as at August 2022 (Preliminary ERP).
6. The population data are subject to confidential and randomised processes. Accuracy to the last digit is not claimed and should not be assumed.
7. Future requests for data and publications may not exactly correspond to the figures in this report as they will reflect subsequent additions to the dataset.
8. Participants include only women screened by BSV and with Victorian residential address at the time of screening. This participation data does not capture private mammography.
9. Client addresses are assigned a Delivery Point Identifier (DPID) and Statistical area level (SA1), Local Government Areas (LGA) and other geographic variables based on the client’s complete address, i.e., street address, suburb, and postcode via geocoding software.
- Some postcodes were reallocated manually.
10. State-wide participation rate used by BSV are derived by aggregating participation rate by BSV Regions, which are mapped via postcode.
- Please note that there is a small variation of 0.1% - 0.5% in the above state-wide participation rate for all women aged 50-74 years versus the aggregating rate by LGA (when Wodonga women are excluded).
- Participation rate for LGA ‘Wodonga’ is very low (less than 1%) due to women screening at Albury clinic.
11. Primary Public Health (PHN) data - participants include women screened by BSV assigned to a PHN via their SA1* region at the time of screening.
- *ABS 2016 Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Structure.
- Target age data was allocated by BSV geocoding software and includes all data.
- Five-year age group data was allocated to a PHN (by ACPCC) by applying the PHN converter to postcode level data, resulting in some women being allocated to an interstate PHN, and thus excluded from the data.
- PHN five-year age group data does therefore not align exactly with PHN target age data.
12. To convert data from postcode to PHN we used the following concordances:
- ASGS Geographic Correspondences Table 3 of file named CG_POSTCODE_2021_PHN_2017, which is a 2016 Mesh Block population weighted correspondence file.
- Source: www.data.gov.au
- Search for: ABS ASGS Correspondences
- Click on: ASGS Geographic Correspondences (2021) Edition 3
- Download: ASGS Edition 3 (2021) Correspondence Files (ZIP)
- File name: CG_POSTCODE_2021_PHN_2017
- Table 3 Correspondence
- Postcodes not listed in concordances were mapped manually.
- Women screened with Victorian postcodes mapped to PHNs outside Victoria were excluded from PHN tables and therefore overall totals may not align with state totals.
- Postcodes 3644 and 3707 were mapped to Murrumbidgee PHN and excluded from the data.
13. Participation rates for some postcodes was over 100%. There are a number of reasons for this, for example seasonal populations such as holiday locations can cause the number of women screened to become higher than the resident population.
- Areas with smaller populations are also subject to greater error and variability, as sometimes a little change can have a significant percentage difference.
14. Participation rates in border regions - Participation rates for the border LGAs of Wodonga, Wangaratta, Towong, Alpine and Indigo are very low due to women screening across the border in NSW. Women screened in NSW are not included in this dataset.
15. Data by Local Public Health Unit (LPHU) is calculated as an aggregate of LGAs.
16. Some of the technical notes above have been reformatted from BSV’s original technical notes provided with the data.
17. Breast screening appointments were paused starting from 25 March 2020 due to the Victorian Coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown and resumed on 11 May 2020.
18. A pop-up assessment clinic was trialled by Gippsland BreastScreen for East Gippsland on November 26, December 2, and December 10 in 2021 with initiatives to enhance access to health services for regional and rural women.
- The trial also concurred with the Mobile Screening Service's two-yearly visit to the East Gippsland region.
- For Ararat, the BSV van visited the region from October 11 to October 29 in 2021 to provide free breast screening services to the community.
19. Women aged 40+ can access the BreastScreen Victoria Program. The target age range for the program is 50-74. Overall BreastScreen Victoria screened more clients in 2022 than 2021. BreastScreen Victoria screened less clients in the target age range as more clients outside the target age group (i.e. aged 40-49 and 75+) screened in 2022, compared to 2021. This was due to BreastScreen Victoria relaxing its age prioritisation policy in 2022. During 2020 and 2021 as a measure to manage capacity constraints during the COVID-19 pandemic, a prioritisation policy was in place providing priority bookings to clients in the target age group.”
