DRAFT
four inner-metropolitan AHS are geographically small and densely populated while the
five AHS in the outer-metropolitan areas are larger in area and have lower population
density. The eight remaining AHS make up the rural group. These regions are very large
compared to the metropolitan AHS and much more sparsely populated. Finally, a survey
year dummy was added to the model to capture potential differences in screening
behaviours between the two survey years.
Results
Table 1 contains a summary of screening behaviour categories and the distribution of the
sample of women among the three categories. Approximately 12% of women aged 50-69
reported that they never had a mammogram, 75% reported that they had their last
screening mammogram less than 2 years ago, and 14% of women indicated that they
were irregular screeners (i.e. their last screening mammogram was more than 2 years
ago). Note that the proportion of women in the NSW Health survey who reported
screening regularly is considerably higher than the proportion reported in the
BreastScreen NSW registry data (75% versus 50% respectively).
INSERT TABLE 1 AROUND HERE
Table 2 contains the descriptive statistics for the women in the study sample according to
screening behaviour. Never screeners were, on average, younger than their (regular or
irregular) screener counterparts by at least 1.5 years. This is not surprising given that the
BreastScreen program commences recruitment strategies when a woman turns fifty.
Regular screeners worked an average 11.5 hours per week compared to irregular
screeners who worked 13.9 hours. Regular screeners were less likely to be born overseas
and more likely to speak English at home compared to never or irregular screeners. There
were no differences between the three screening groups in terms of household income,
education attainment or region of residence. Approximately 90% of the sample
population resided in areas that are either accessible or highly accessible in our analysis.
INSERT TABLE 2 AROUND HERE