gms | German Medical Science

Background and aim: No previous analysis has simultaneously investigated the determinants of screening uptake for breast and cervical cancer screening for possible spillover effects from one type of screening examination to the other type of screening examination.

Material and Methods: For our analysis, we used a dynamic random effects bivariate panel probit model with initial conditions (Wooldridge-type estimator) and dependent variables were the participation of breast and cervical cancer screening in the recent year. The balanced panel sample consisted of 844 women from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) for the time period from 1992 to 2008.

Results: Our analysis showed the high relevance of past screening behaviour and the importance of state dependency for the same and the other type of cancer screening examinations even after controlling for covariates and unobserved heterogeneity. The uptake for breast and cervical cancer screening was higher if the same screening examination was done one or three years before which is in accordance with the medical screening guidelines in the UK. For breast and cervical cancer screening positive spillover effects existed from one type of examination to the other type of examination for the third order lags. Women with a previous visit of a general practitioner and individuals in the recommended age groups had a higher uptake for breast and cervical cancer screening. Other socioeconomic and health related variables had non-uniform results in both screening examinations.

Conclusions: Promoting the uptake level of one type of female prevention activity could also enhance the uptake of the other type of prevention activity.