Mobile Mammography Data Proves Screening Need Index Works

A new tool helps pinpoint where breast cancer screening matters most. Researchers built the Community Need Priority Index for Breast Cancer Screening to spot areas with low screening rates. They tested it using real data from a mobile mammography program. Between 2021 and 2025 the van visited 418 events with 176 local partners. Over 3,600 people got screened during those visits.

The index splits neighborhoods into five groups based on need. The highest-need group had 243 census tracts. Nearly half of all mobile events happened there. Forty-four percent of all screened patients came from those same tracts. That shows the van went where need was greatest.

Underscreening means rarely or never getting a mammogram. In the lowest-need areas only 27 percent were underscreened. In the highest-need areas that number jumped to 47 percent. The climb was steady across all five groups. The index predicted this pattern with an odds ratio of 1.20 for every 0.1 increase in score.

About 44 percent of patients got screened in the same need-level area where they live. The tool's accuracy scored 0.692 on a corrected test and 0.735 on the initial run. Both numbers suggest it does a decent job separating high-need from low-need communities.

Health centers can now use this index to plan smarter outreach. It turns complex data into a clear map for action. Mobile units can focus fuel and staff where they save the most lives. The evidence backs up what community workers already suspected.