Evaluating the impact of a promotional campaign for screening mammography: women's knowledge and sources of awareness

The Breast X‐Ray Programme of the Central Sydney Health Service was advertised by generalised strategies aimed at the total community, including poster and pamphlet distribution, and strategies aimed at general practitioners, supplemented by written invitations and recommendation from the general practitioner, invitations for friends, and invitations from the service using the electoral listing. In order to evaluate the reach or impact of the promotional campaign in the Drummoyne local government area, telephone interviews were conducted with women aged 45 to 70 randomly selected from the community. Women's knowledge about breast cancer, screening and the Breast X‐Ray Programme, plus sociodemographic characteristics, were obtained before screening ( n = 628), 10 months ( n = 93) and 2 years after screening started ( n = 206). While knowledge about risk did not change, significant increases were found in the proportion of women who had heard of mammography, screening mammography specifically and the screening van. In addition there were significant increases in the proportion of women exposed to information about screening mammograms. The campaign generally had an equal effect on different sociodemographic but managed to achieve greater effects in women of non‐English‐speaking backgrounds and lower occupational status. A random sample of program attenders aged 45 to 70 ( n = 763) were asked how they found out about the van. ‘Seeing the van’ was the most consistently reported source of awareness. Others included ‘GPs’, ‘newspapers’, ‘other print media’ and ‘personal networks’. Women with additional qualifications since leaving school were more likely to state ‘newspaper’ and ‘other print media’ as a source.