National Cervical Screening Program

Project Overview

Australia is on track to become the first country to eliminate cervical cancer by 2035. Screening is crucial as more than 70% of Australians diagnosed with cervical cancer are either under-screened or have never screened. This program encourages all women aged between 25 and 74 who have had sexual contact to screen every five years. The Collaborative is supporting this by working alongside the Australian Centre for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer (ACPCC) and community partners to promote awareness of self-collection.

The program builds on established community engagement across Vietnamese, Arabic, Hindi, Punjabi and Chinese-speaking communities under the Own It Cervical Screening Campaign, while expanding to six additional language groups in a phased approach: Tamil, Nepali and Somali (Year 1), and Indonesian, Malaysian, Brazilian Portuguese (Year 2).

Own It Cervical Screening (Self-Collection) Campaign

The Own It campaign marked the first national cervical screening campaign in more than 20 years, focusing on the prevention of the most preventable cancer.

The $10 million campaign aimed to raise awareness of self-collection cervical screening tests, particularly among multicultural and First Nations populations, as well as those living with disabilities, residing in rural and remote areas, and individuals from sexually and gender-diverse communities. Introduced in 2022, self-collection allows women to conduct their own tests privately at a local clinic using a simple swab.

In this first phase of the campaign, the Australian Multicultural Health Collaborative worked alongside community partners to promote awareness of self-collection among six language groups, including Arabic, Cantonese, Hindi, Mandarin, Punjabi, and Vietnamese-speaking women.