National Healthcare Agreement: P12-Bowel cancer screening rates, 2010 QS
Data Quality Statement Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Quality Statement |
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METEOR identifier: | 392613 |
Registration status: | Health, Superseded 08/06/2011 |
Data quality | |
Data quality statement summary: |
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Institutional environment: | The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) is a joint program of the Australian Government and state and territory governments. The target ages are 50, 55 and 65 years. The NBCSP is monitored annually. Results are compiled and reported at the national level by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) in an annual National bowel cancer screening program monitoring report. The NBCSP register is maintained by Medicare Australia. Data from the register are provided to the AIHW six monthly as unit record data. For further information see the AIHW website. |
Timeliness: | Data available for the 2010 COAG Reform Council baseline report is based on the calendar period 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2008. |
Accessibility: | The NBCSP annual reports are available via the AIHW website where they can be downloaded free of charge. |
Interpretability: | While numbers of people screened are easy to interpret, the NBCSP screening pathway may be confusing to some users. Information on the NBCSP is available in all AIHW NBCSP monitoring reports, for example, National bowel cancer screening program monitoring report 2009. Information on ABS data is available on the ABS website. Extensive information is also available on bowel cancer screening and can be located both on the internet and in hard copy. |
Relevance: | The Program register collects available data at all stages on the bowel cancer screening pathway undertaken as part of the NBCSP. However, there are no mandatory requirements for data supply at any stage in the bowel cancer screening pathway so data are incomplete. It is also important to note that additional bowel cancer screening is undertaken outside of the NBCSP. Data on people screened outside the program are not routinely collected; therefore, the level of underestimation of overall bowel cancer screening is unknown. |
Accuracy: | Remoteness and socioeconomic status are based on postcode of residential address at the time of screening. However, while the numerator is based on the postcode that a participant reports at the time of screening, the denominator is based on population by Statistical Local Area. This generally means that data can be acceptable at the national level, but produce spurious results at the jurisdictional level. Self-reporting of Indigenous status within the program is poor, with around 32% of participants not responding to this question in 2008. Thus, participation rates based on Indigenous status are considered too unreliable to be included. |
Coherence: | This is the first year of reporting this indicator. Similar data are published annually in NBCSP monitoring reports prepared by the AIHW. The most recent of these reports is National bowel cancer screening program monitoring report 2009. In the NBCSP reports, screening rates are presented as a proportion of the number of invitations to participate in a given time. In this indicator, screening rates are presented as a proportion of the ERP for people aged 50, 55 and 65. In addition, both numerators and denominators used for NBCSP monitoring reports exclude those people who opt off, or suspend participation from the program. This indicator does not exclude these people from either numerator or denominator. Consequently, results of this indicator will vary from Program participation presented in annual NBCSP reports and the results should not be compared. |
Source and reference attributes | |
Submitting organisation: | Australian Institute of Health and Welfare |
Relational attributes | |
Related metadata references: | Has been superseded by National Healthcare Agreement: PI 12-Bowel cancer screening rates, 2011 QS Health, Superseded 04/12/2012 |
Indicators linked to this Data Quality statement: | National Healthcare Agreement: P12-Bowel cancer screening rates, 2010 Health, Superseded 08/06/2011 |