Women and health checks: Making sense of differential uptake

Abstract

This paper uses British Household Panel Study data to examine the frequency of women's use of four preventivehcreening health services: breast cancer screening, cervical cytology, opticians and dentists. Although the take-up rate for all four services is high, there is a relationship between material deprivation, age, social class and service use. The pattern of differential uptake is complex and demographic variables are not ve y successful at predicting who will take up which service. W e t h e r the service costs money, or access to it is means-tested, appears to be a major determinant of whether demographic variables predict uptake.