BreastScreen Australia's experience taking services to rural and remote areas

The BreastScreen Australia Program commenced in 1991. Since then a national network of breast cancer screening services has been established including Screening and Assessment Services, satellite, relocatable and mobile services.

In 2000–2001 the Program screened more than half a million women. The national age-standardised participation rate for women in the target age group 50–69 years was 56.9%. The participation rate varied across States/Territories ranging from 46.3% in Northern Territory to 64.3% in South Australia.

A key objective of the Program is to ensure equitable participation across all sectors of the community. The Program has achieved a relatively high level of equity in screening women across socioeconomic, cultural and geographically rural/remote groups. There was no decline in participation with decreasing socioeconomic status, with only marginal differences for the most and least disadvantaged groups at 55.9% and 55.3%, respectively.

Participation in regional, rural and remote areas is significantly higher than the national participation rate, ranging from 62.1% for regional centres to 57.9% in remote areas.

This presentation will illustrate with pictures and discuss access to breast cancer screening in Australia, specifically the challenges of providing services across vast distances in rural and remote Queensland.