Research Article A Prospective Assessment of Racial/Ethnic Differences in Future Mammography Behavior among Women

Background: Twenty-nine percent of women, aged 30 to 39, report having had a mammogram, though sensitivity and specificity are low. We investigate racial/ethnic differences in future mammography behavior among women who had a baseline screening mammogram prior to age 40. Methods: Using 1994–2008 data from the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC), we identified 29,390 women aged 35 to 39 with a baseline screening mammogram. We followed this cohort for 2 outcomes: (i) future BCSC mammography between ages 40 and 45; and (2) among those, delay in screening mammo-graphy until ages 43 to 45 compared with ages 40 to 42. Using adjusted log-linear models, we estimated the relative risk (RR) of these outcomes by race/ethnicity, while also considering the impact of false-positive/ true-negative (FP/TN) baseline mammography results on these outcomes. Results: Relative to non-Hispanic white women, Hispanic women had an increased risk of no future BCSC mammography (RR: 1.21, 95 % CI: 1.13–1.30); Asian women had a decreased risk (RR: 0.67, 95 % CI: 0.61–0.74). Women with a FP result, compared with a TN result, had a decreased risk of no future BCSC mammography (RR: 0.89, 95 % CI: 0.85–0.95). Among those with future BCSC screening mammography, African American women were more likely to delay the timing (RR: 1.26, 95 % CI: 1.09–1.45). The interaction between race/ ethnicity and FP/TN baseline results was not significant. Conclusions:Race/ethnicity is differentially associatedwith future BCSCmammography and the timing of screening mammography after age 40. Impact: These findings introduce the need for research that examines disparities in lifetime mammography use patterns from the initiation of mammography screening. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 20(4); 600–8. 2011 AACR