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Screening Mammography: A Cross-Sectional Study to Compare Characteristics of Women Aged 40 and Older From the Deep South Who Are Current, Overdue, and Never Screeners
Women's Health Issues, 11/04/09

Lopez EDS et al. – Nearly one in four women was overdue or had never had a mammogram. Enabling factors, including poor access to care (no annual checkups, no health insurance) and to health information, lack of social support for screening, and competing needs, were significantly associated with being both overdue and never screeners. Pertaining to factors unique to each screening group, women were more likely to be overdue when they had no usual source of health care and believed that treatment was worse than the disease. In turn, women were more likely to be never screeners when they were African American, lacked a provider recommendation for screening, and held the fatalistic view that not much could be done to prevent breast cancer. Similar and unique factors impact utilization of mammography screening services among women. Those factors could inform efforts to increase screening rates.