The Screening Action Gap: Why U.S. Women Miss Critical Health Screenings
Regular health screenings save lives. But a new Hologic-Gallup survey reveals that while most U.S. women recognize this importance, many have missed essential screenings – a mismatch called the Screening Action Gap.
Tens of Millions of American Women Affected
U.S. women are behind on their recommended health screenings, the nationally representative survey shows. Main factors that women cited for skipping or delaying these vital screenings include anxiety about medical tests, fear of pain, concerns regarding affordability and simply not believing that a particular screening is necessary for them.
women surveyed nationwide.
said health screenings are important.
said they aren’t fully confident about what screenings they need.
said they have missed or delayed a recommended screening.
die each year from breast, cervical and colon cancers — the top missed screenings.
Three Key Factors
The survey also identifies crucial reasons for the Screening Action Gap.
Women struggle to find relevant, useful health information.
Many report inadequate communication about screenings with healthcare professionals.
Various barriers make it difficult for women to make their health a top priority.
U.S. Health Survey
As a company focused on early detection, diagnosis and treatment of women’s health conditions, Hologic is committed to ensuring all women benefit from regular screenings. We also recognize that you can’t improve what you can’t measure – that’s why we partnered with Gallup, a leading independent research firm, to conduct a national study to hear directly from women about their experiences with, and attitudes about, health screenings.
The Hologic-Gallup U.S. survey was fielded April 8-16, 2024, with a total of 4,001 eligible U.S. adult women, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
The Gallup Panel™ is a probability-based panel of U.S. adults who are randomly selected using address-based sampling methodology and random-digit-dial phone interviews that cover landlines and cellphones. Women under the age of 35 were oversampled to better account for views of younger women. All respondents were invited to participate in the survey via the web. The survey was fielded in English only, with a $5 post-paid incentive. The sample for this study was weighted to be demographically representative of the U.S. adult population, using the most recent Current Population Figures.
The final AAPOR 5 response rate from the Gallup Panel was 48.01%. The final design effect due to weighting is 1.98.
For results based on these samples of national adults, one can say that the maximum margin of sampling error at the 95% confidence level is ±2.2 percentage points, which accounts for the design effect from weighting. For reported subgroups, the margin of error will be larger, ranging from ±2.2 to ±10.1 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error and bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
Population estimations were calculated using U.S. Census Bureau estimates of the total population of women [census.gov] in the U.S. as of July 1, 2023.