Number of Women Having a Breast Screening Test (Mammography) in Victoria (Jan 2018 - Dec 2024)
1. Definition:
Number of women aged 50-74 who had breast cancer screening test (Mammography) in Victoria from Jan 2018 to Dec 2024.
2. 'Women' in this report refers to women and trans and gender diverse people.
3. Data source: BreastScreen Victoria data tables
BreastScreen Victoria data extract provided Jul 2025 for Jan 2023- Dec 2024 data.
BreastScreen Victoria aggregated data tables provided Jan 2023 - for Jan 2018 - Dec 2022 data except for the 2021 data.
The 2021 data was refreshed using the summary aggregated data supplied in April 2023. This is due to an additional 70 screens being added to September 2021 following a data fix applied to the client system in March 2023.
4. Count is of women whose age is in the target age group: 50-74. This is not a count of tests.
5. Screens are counted as the first attended screen per round. Participants may be counted more than once where they have had more than one screening round in the period e.g., annual screening.
6. Data by Local Public Health Unit (LPHU) is calculated as an aggregate of Local Government Areas (LGAs).
7. During the COVID-19 pandemic, local public health units (LPHUs) were created to oversee local cases and outbreaks of COVID-19.
As of July 2022, the nine LPHUs (three metropolitan and six regional) have expanded their roles to include disease prevention, population health, and the investigation and response to notifiable conditions.
They are now tasked with managing local cases and outbreaks for more than 30 notifiable conditions.
Metropolitan LPHUs include: North Eastern Public Health Unit, South East Public Health Unit, Western Public Health Unit
Regional LPHUs include: Barwon South West, Goulburn Valley, Gippsland, Grampians, Ovens Murray, Loddon Mallee
8. The Moreland City Council was renamed Merri-bek City Council (LGA code: 24700) on 26 September 2022.
9. To convert data from postcode to Primary Health Network (PHN) we used the following concordances:
Primary Health Networks (PHN) (2023) – Postal Areas (2021)
Source: www.data.gov.au
Search for: Primary Health Networks (PHN) concordance files
Click on: Primary Health Networks (PHN) concordance files
Download: Primary Health Networks (PHN) (2023) – Postal Areas (2021)
Participants with Victorian postcodes mapped to PHNs outside Victoria were excluded from PHN tables and therefore overall totals may not align with state totals.
Please note that converting from SA1 to PHN is planned to start once the alignment of methodology with BreastScreen Victoria is complete.
10. Primary Health Networks (PHNs) are independent organisations that are funded by the Australian Government to oversee primary health care in their respective regions.
PHNs evaluate the health needs of their communities and commission services to ensure that individuals can access coordinated care when and where it's needed.
There are 6 Primary Health Network (PHN) regions in Victoria.
Metropolitan PHNs include: Eastern Melbourne, North Western Melbourne, South Eastern Melbourne
Regional PHNs include: Gippsland, Murray, Western Victoria
11. BSV provided data by Postcode and LGA, which includes all screens performed by BSV, and include some women with interstate addresses. This report includes only women with Victorian postcodes and LGAs.
Therefore, minor discrepancy is expected compared with BSV reporting.
12. Some of the technical notes above have been reformatted from BSV's original technical notes provided with the data.
13. Breast screening appointments were paused starting from 25 March 2020 due to the Victorian Coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown and resumed on 11 May 2020.
14. In late Nov-early Dec 2021, Mobile Screening Services from BreastScreen Victoria serviced the East Gippsland region as part of its two-yearly visit to provide free breast screening services to the community.
For Ararat, the BreastScreen Victoria van visited the region from October 11 to October 29 in 2021, and from November 30 to December 15 in 2023.
15. 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.
16. BreastScreen Victoria's 2022-2026 Service Expansion Plan:
In June 2022, the Victorian Premier and Minister for Health announced a $20 million funding increase to the BreastScreen Victoria program, which will:
- Enable meeting increased service demand due to population growth, by opening new permanent screening clinics across the state, redeveloping Reading and Assessment Services and delivering breast screening services to an additional 36,000 eligible Victorians annually by 2026-27.
- Boost participation in the BreastScreen Victoria program, especially amongst under-screened priority groups and participants ageing into the program.
- Save more lives.
For further information on the Service Expansion Plan, please visit: https://clara.breastscreen.org.au/intranet/documents/379/4660/BSV_2022_26_Service_Expansion_Plan.pdf
17. Screening numbers for LGA 'Wodonga' is very low due to some women screening at Albury clinic. Since the clinic is located in New South Wales, women screening at Albury clinic will have data captured by New South Wales.
18. Cells with a count less than 5 have been suppressed and are represented by #.
To ensure the suppressed value cannot be determined by other values in the row or column, or by the row or column total, other values in the row or column may also be suppressed.
19. Please note that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted screening services and health seeking behaviours which will be reflected in the data in 2020-2022.
