Socioeconomic deprivation, travel distance, location of service, and uptake of breast cancer screening in North Derbyshire, UK

• DOI: 10.1136/jech.200x.038398
• Publication Date: 2006-02-13T17:38:13Z
• Authors: R. Maheswaran
• Keywords: Travel; Urban Health; 1. No poverty; Breast Neoplasms; Rural Health; Middle Aged; Patient Acceptance of Health Care; Health Services Accessibility; 3. Good health; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; England; Socioeconomic Factors; 11. Sustainability; Odds Ratio; Humans; Mass Screening; Female; 10. No inequality; Mobile Health Units; Mammography

This study examined the association between socioeconomic deprivation, travel distance, urban-rural status, location and type of screening unit, and breast screening uptake. Screening was provided at 13 locations--1 fixed and 12 mobile (3 at non-health locations).The study examined data from 1998 to 2001 for 34 868 women aged 50-64 years, calculated road travel distance, used 1991 enumeration district level Townsend socioeconomic deprivation scores, and a ward level urban-rural classification.Odds of attendance for screening decreased with increasing socioeconomic deprivation, with an adjusted odds ratio of 0.64 (95%CI 0.59 to 0.70) in the most deprived relative to the least deprived category. 87% of women lived within 8 km of their screening location. The odds ratio for a 10 km increase in distance was 0.87 (95%CI 0.79 to 0.95). The odds ratios were 1.18 (95%CI 1.08 to 1.28) for screening at a non-health relative to a health location, 1.00 (95%CI 0.94 to 1.07) for the fixed site relative to the mobile unit and 1.00 (95%CI 0.91 to 1.09) for mainly rural relative to mainly urban areas.Socioeconomic inequality in breast screening uptake seems to persist in an established service. There was a small decrease with increasing distance, no difference between fixed and mobile units, and no difference between urban and rural areas but uptake seemed to be higher at non-health sites. Further work is needed to identify effective methods of decreasing socioeconomic inequalities in uptake and to confirm if non-health locations are associated with higher screening uptake.