joint strategic needs assessment foundation profile - JSNA

Interative Hull Atlas: www.hullpublichealth.org/Pages/hull_atlas.htm More information: www.jsnaonline.org and www.hullpublichealth.org
9.3.3 Influences on Breast and Cervical Screening Rates
9.3.3.1 Mean Age of Practice Patients
The age of the women may influence whether or not they attend breast and/or cervical
cancer screening appointments. The mean age of the practice patients (both men and
women) has been illustrated in Table 28, and Figure 177 and Figure 178 show the
mean age of the practice patients relative to breast and cervical cancer screening rates
respectively. The underlying data are given in Table 28 and in the APPENDIX on page
897 (breast cancer screening data) and on page 899 (cervical cancer screening data).
Note that the figures give the mean age of all practice patients (i.e. all men and women
registered with the practice) rather than the mean age of the patients eligible the
screening. It can be seen that there is a relationship between the age of patients
registered with the practice and screening rates despite the mean age representing only
a very crude measure of the age structure of the practice population. It is possible that
practices with relatively large numbers of younger patients tend to focus less on
screening particularly breast cancer screening as it is less relevant to the majority of
their population (the relationship between age and screening appears much stronger for
breast screening compared to cervical cancer screening).
Figure 177: Relationship between mean age of practice patients and breast cancer
screening rates (three years to 2009/2010)
Breast screening (%)
90
80
70
60
50
40
25 30 35 40 45 50
Mean age of all practice patients
Joint Strategic Needs Assessment Foundation Profile – Hull Health Profile: Release 3. March 2011. 426