DO CHART REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS PROVIDE THE SAME INFORMATION ABOUT BREAST AND CERVICAL-CANCER SCREENING

The National Cancer Institute of the United States has set a goal for the year 2000 that 80-90% of eligible women should have a Pap smear ev ery 3 years and that 80% of women aged 50-70 should receive an annual breast examination and mammogram. Very few studies have examined how w e might best measure our progress towards this goal. Specifically, sho uld we employ interview data or data derived from medical records? To respond to this question, data were gathered at two different public h ealth clinics in poor areas of Chicago using both techniques. The inte rviews estimated significantly higher proportions of women receiving P ap smears, breast examinations, and mammograms in the previous 12-mont h interval than were estimated from randomly selected medical records. A review of the literature suggests the same pattern exists when othe r studies using these two data gathering processes are compared. We ar e thus left with a serious problem, one that must be resolved before w e will be able to fully assess our progress in increasing breast and c ervical cancer screening.