Cervical screening data 2015–2016; Quality Statement
Data Quality Statement Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Quality Statement |
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METEOR identifier: | 668824 |
Registration status: | AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 29/01/2019 |
Data quality | |
Data quality statement summary: | Summary of Key Issues
Description All states and territories have legislation that requires pathology laboratories to send all cervical tests to the relevant state or territory cervical screening register.
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Institutional environment: | The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) is a major national agency set up by the Australian Government under the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987 to provide reliable, regular and relevant information and statistics on Australia's health and welfare. It is an independent corporate Commonwealth entity established in 1987, governed by a management Board, and accountable to the Australian Parliament through the Health portfolio. |
Timeliness: | Cervical cytology data are available within about 6 months (there can be a lag of up to 6 months in the transmission of test results from pathology laboratories to cervical screening registers), and data for the previous calendar year are supplied in July each year (rescreening and correlation data lag behind, as the specifications for these require more time to pass before this can be calculated). |
Accessibility: | Cervical screening data are published annually in the report Cervical screening in Australia, available on the AIHW website http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/cervical-screening/ where they can be downloaded without charge. Supplementary data tables that provide more detailed data are also provided to accompany each report, and these, too, are available on the AIHW website where they can be downloaded without charge.
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Interpretability: | While many concepts in the report Cervical screening in Australia are easy to interpret, other concepts and statistical calculations are more complex. All concepts are explained within the body of the report presenting these data, along with footnotes to provide further details and caveats. Additional detail on the data sources, classifications, and the statistical methods used can be found in the Appendixes of the report. |
Relevance: | Cervical screening data are highly relevant for monitoring trends in cervical screening participation and abnormality detection trends. The data are used for many purposes by policy-makers and researchers, but are supplied and analysed specifically to monitor and inform the NCSP. |
Accuracy: | All data provided by state and territory cervical screening programs, once analysed, are supplied back for verification. |
Coherence: | Cervical screening data are reported and published annually by the AIHW. |
Relational attributes | |
Related metadata references: | Supersedes Cervical screening data 2014–2015; Quality Statement AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 03/07/2017 Has been superseded by Cervical screening data 2016–2017; Quality Statement AIHW Data Quality Statements, Standard 29/01/2019 |