Socio-economic and ethnocultural influences on geographical disparities in breast cancer screening participation in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Objective: To examine the socio-economic and ethnocultural characteristics of geographical areas that may influence variation in breast cancer screening participation. Methods: In a cross-sectional analysis breast cancer screening participation for statistical areas in Victoria, Australia (2015-2017) was linked with data from the 2016 Australian Census. We selected four commonly used area-level measures of socio-economic status from the Australian Census (i) income (ii) educational level (iii) occupational status and (iv) employment profile. To assess the ethnocultural characteristics of statistical areas we used the Census measures (i) country of birth (ii) language spoken at home (iii) flu..