Scottish bowel screening uptake statistics by race and ethnicity
Pilot study of the application of PHS race and ethnicity index

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) presents the findings of a pilot study conducted to evaluate the application of a new Race and Ethnicity Index within the Scottish Bowel Screening Programme database. The routine monitoring of screening uptake in different ethnic groups is important for identifying existing differences and understanding barriers to engagement and access within the programme. Progress in this area has been limited, as the Scottish Bowel Screening Programme does not record the race and ethnicity of participants.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) has recently developed a Race and Ethnicity Index for internal use, which allows individuals to be assigned to race and ethnicity groups using their Community Health Index (CHI) number.

The PHS Race and Ethnicity Index pools ethnicity information from multiple health datasets including hospital care, Scottish cancer registry, vaccinations, the child health programme, and maternity services. The background and the methodology used to create the index is available within the methodology summary paper.

Main points

For the two-year period from 1 May 2022 to 30 April 2024:

• 1,920,293 individuals aged 50 to 74 were invited to participate in the national bowel screening programme, to complete a home bowel screening test. Of these,
  • Two-thirds of people successfully returned their kit (66% uptake), meeting the programme minimum uptake target of 60%.
  • 1,805,618 (94.0%) were successfully assigned to a race and ethnicity group, using the new index, this includes 168,645 (8.8%) assigned to the 'Prefer not to say' group.
  • 114,675 (6.0%) could not be assigned to any group and were classified as 'Not Known'.
• Uptake varied across race and ethnicity groups.
• Uptake ranged from 42.2% among individuals assigned to Bangladeshi, Scottish Bangladeshi, or British Bangladeshi to 70.8% among those assigned to White: Other British.
• Screening uptake for individuals assigned to the 'Prefer not to say' group at 68.1% was comparable to 'White: Scottish' at 68.4%.
• Screening uptake was very low at 27.7% for individuals who could not be assigned to a race and ethnicity group.
• Individuals were more likely to have a 'Not Known' race and ethnicity if they were younger, male (50-54 years), or living in more deprived areas

Background

The Scottish Bowel Screening Programme for bowel cancer began in 2007, initially using the faecal occult blood test (FOBt), which was later replaced by the faecal immunochemical test (FIT) in 2017. Individuals aged 50 to 74 years old are invited to participate in the programme every two years. The programme has a minimum uptake target of 60%.

For the two-year period from 01 May 2022 to 30 April 2024, over 1.9 million people were invited to complete a home bowel screening test. Two-thirds of people successfully returned their kit (66% uptake), meeting the programme minimum uptake target of 60%. Uptake was higher in females (68%) than males (63%). Further details on the bowel screening programme for this period is available from the Scottish bowel screening programme statistics publication.

Further information

For information on the future of these statistics, please see the planned developments section within the full report.