Overview

The Bowel Cancer Screening Alliance is undertaking research on the barriers and facilitators to NBCSP participation amongst Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Australian populations. 

According to the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program monitoring report 2025, the screening participation rate was approximately 41.7% to 42% for 2022-2023. Rates for CALD populations are lower, dropping to one-third for those speaking a language other than English at home.

As of the 2021 Census, 27.6% of the Australian population were born overseas. Nearly half (48.2%) of Australians have at least one parent born overseas. In addition, about 23% of Australians speak a language other than English at home.

A large body of research has confirmed the critical importance of the GP (or Primary Care Practitioner) in the successful roll-out of the bowel cancer screening program, regardless of culture and language status. As part of the NBCSP’s Alternative Access Model, GPs can now bulk order kits to issue to eligible patients during an appointment.

A greater use of GPs at the time of first screening offer (i.e. age 45 years) is likely to increase participation rate for the CALD community. But more research is needed to understand how to implement this strategy.

Research projects

Our research comprises the following projects that all focus on better understanding people from diverse communities’ attitude and behavior towards bowel screening, improving bowel cancer screening knowledge and increasing the participation rate.

• Bowel cancer screening and perceptions of the NBCP’s Alternative Access Model
  
• Family’s influence on screening participation in collective cultures
  
• Developing CALD-informed website resources to increase participation

Investigators and researchers

Prof Carlene Wilson³, Dr Joyce Jiang³, Dr Lanxi Huang³, Prof Jenny McIntosh¹²³, Prof Shanton Chang³, Dana McKay^4, Jennifer Huang³

Affiliated organisations

1. Centre for Cancer Research, University of Melbourne, Australia
2. Department of General Practice and Primary Care, University of Melbourne, Australia
3. Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Australia.
4. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia