Access to BreastScreen Australia screening services

Overview

Scope: BreastScreen Australia screening mammography service locations, active from 2021–2024, with 2024 anticipated.

Due to the nature of the screening program (recommended every 2 years) and the importance of visiting services in regional and remote areas, location data were collected along with the timing of visits, if applicable. The availability of services in individual years was used to add gradation to the drive time results.

To maximise the relevance of the results, efforts were made to represent the availability of services in 2023 and 2024 as a priority. For example, new services or changes to existing services in 2023 or 2024 (anticipated) were allowed to override availability in 2021 and 2022. Similarly, services that were discontinued between 2021 and 2023 were excluded from the standard results – only being included in the category, ‘open at least once from 2021 to 2024’, which shows in the dashboard and other geographical results.

Details

Collection phase: Data for screening sites were received from state and territory BreastScreen organisations between July and October 2023.

Type of screening site:

• BreastScreen organisations provided the following information for each service location, along with street address/coordinates:

  Reference year (following a hierarchy)	Type of screening site (by the end of the reference year)
  One from options: Q1. Screening in 2023? [If yes] 2023 [If not] Q2. Screening in 2024? [If yes] 2024 [If not] Q3. Screened in 2022? [If yes] 2022 [If not] Q4. Screened in 2021? [If yes] 2021 [If not] Out-of-scope	One from options: Permanently open Visiting annually Visiting every 2 years Visiting every 3 years Visiting every 4 years Visiting infrequently (5+ years) or trial site Permanently closed

• For visiting services, the provided frequency was then extrapolated across the 2021–2024 period to align with the requirements of the drive time analysis (see Drive time analysis).

Validation: Data were validated against online information then resupplied to the organisations to advise of any changes made. Geocode placements are expected to be within 200 metres of true locations.

Limitations

• Capacity information (the number of women that a service could potentially screen) was not sought for this analysis, due to the complexity that this would add to the data collection process and reporting of results. In reality, services will have a range of capacities for service delivery, and this may have an impact on women’s ability to receive screening.
• Services that are not administered by BreastScreen Australia are not included in this analysis but may be important in some areas (for example, Norfolk Island).
• Service frequency is represented in terms of the expected service schedule covering the period 2021–2024. Disruptions to usual frequency, such as those that occurred following the outbreak of COVID-19, and those tied to brief infrastructure/workforce issues are not factored into this analysis. Service changes that take place after the analysis was finalised are unable to be included.
• As service frequency was based on calendar-‍year information, there are likely to be instances where the term, ‘at least annually’ does not represent availability of services within any given 12-‍month window – for example, if a visiting service was only near to a population in January 2022 and December 2023 (a 24-‍month span). Likewise, the term, ‘at least every 2 years’, may not represent availability within any given 24-‍month period.