In November 2009, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) changed their mammography screening guidelines from recommending a screen every 1–2 years for women older than 40 years. The revised guideline recommends against regular screening for women aged 40–49 and recommends biennial screening for women aged 50–74.
Research Design:
We used autoregressive integrated moving-average (ARIMA) time series modeling to estimate the effect of the USPSTF 2009 guidelines on trends in screening rates. Enrollment and encounter files from the PharMetrics LifeLink+ commercial insurance claims database, years 2006–2014, were linked to determine monthly screening rates. The main outcome measure was mammography screening rates per 1,000 commercially insured women aged 40–49 or aged 50–64.
Results:
The study sample included 493,347 women aged 40–49 years with at least 1 month of eligibility and 658,052 women aged 50–64 years with at least 1 month of eligibility. There were 1,305,375 total screening mammograms from 2007 to 2014. Average monthly mammography screening rates from 2007 to 2014 were 40.4 per 1,000 women aged 40–49 and 54.8 per 1,000 women aged 50–64. There was a temporary decline in monthly screening rates of 11.8% and 11.2% for the 40–49 and 50–64 age groups, respectively, in the 2-month period after the guideline change (January and February 2010), but the rates quickly returned to pre-USPSTF trend levels afterward.
Conclusion:
Implementation of the USPSTF 2009 guidelines was not associated with a persistent long-term change in mammography screening rates over the next 5 years, despite a temporary decline of 2 months immediately following the guidelines.
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