The Australian Cancer Atlas includes details about three different interventional treatments for prostate cancer among men admitted to Australian hospitals: radical prostatectomy, low dose rate brachytherapy and high dose rate brachytherapy. It is noted that there are common treatments for prostate cancer that are not included, such as external beam radiotherapy, but population-based data across Australia on these other types of treatment are not currently available. This is a priority for further work.

In Australia, about one in three cancers can be linked to things we can change, like our lifestyle choices. The Australian Cancer Atlas focused on five main groups of factors that can increase cancer risk: smoking, alcohol, diet, weight, and physical activity. We selected these after consulting a wide range of experts and looking at evidence from studies that showed connections to cancer.

Yes, for cancer diagnosis and survival, information on changes in geographical patterns over time are available. This information can be accessed through the Atlas.

This information is also available for prostate cancer hospital treatment.

Please refer to the e-book for further details.

No. For some types of cancer there is a large amount of geographical variation across the country, for others it is much less pronounced. For each spatial map for cancer diagnosis or survival, there is an ’evidence of variation’ indicator. This shows whether there is ‘strong’, ‘moderate’, ‘weak’ (or ‘no’ evidence for geographical variation.

Similarly, the maps for cancer screening/testing, risk factors and hospital treatment also have an evidence of variation indicator.

The information presented in the Australian Cancer Atlas is current at the time of publication and will be updated when new data becomes available.

Each of the state and territory cancer registries assign Statistical Area level 2 (SA2) codes to each cancer diagnosis record based on the information they have about the patient’s usual residential address at diagnosis. While most of this process is now undertaken by geocoding, in which street address information is allocated a latitude and longitude co-ordinate and then mapped to SA2 boundaries, the actual process varies between the different cancer registries.

This process of allocating SA2 information to each record is not exact and relies on accurate address information being provided to the cancer registries. Challenges can include when a patient address is recorded as a post office box rather than a street address. Each registry has an ongoing process of checking and improving this process.

Information on the geographical location for data sourced from other sources such as hospitals, surveys, Medicare and screening registers was based on the available information provided by the data custodians, and sometimes required approximations such as when converting data between postcode and SA2.

We used the Australian average to provide a context for each of the area-specific estimates. For example, if the Atlas only reported the diagnosis rate for bowel cancer in one area, then it would not provide any information about whether that was a high rate or a low rate when considering the national picture. For that reason, it was decided to specifically report on whether the diagnosis rate was higher than the Australian average, or lower.

On the How to Use page a tutorial has been included that provides a more detailed explanation of how to navigate around the Australian Cancer Atlas. This page also provides insights into how to interpret the key messages.

There is a consistent pattern that, of the cancers common to men and women, men are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer and also die from their cancer than women. In particular, men are more likely to be diagnosed with bowel cancer, melanoma and lung cancer than women. While these are some of the most common cancers, they are also among the most preventable. Unfortunately, men are more likely to smoke, be overweight or obese, not use sun protection and drink excessive alcohol, at least one of which are known to increase the risk of being diagnosed with each of these cancers.

The likelihood of being diagnosed with cancer does increase with age. The statistical modelling used for the Australian Cancer Atlas for cancer diagnosis and survival takes into account age group at diagnosis. If one area has mainly younger people, while another area has mainly older people, this is adjusted for in the statistical modelling. This means that any differences between areas in the Australian Cancer Atlas cannot be explained by differences in age.

Due to the different types of cancer that occur in children, we have restricted the Australian Cancer Atlas to those cancers diagnosed among Australians aged 15 years or older.

The analyses for cancer survival include people aged 15-89 years when diagnosed with cancer.

The age ranges for other measures also vary. For example, public-funded breast screening is 50-74 years, bowel screening is 50-74 years, cervical screening is 25-74 years and PSA testing is 50-79 years. These age ranges correspond to the target ages for the screening programmes. Estimates for cancer risk factors are for Australians aged 15 years and over. Finally, the estimates for prostate cancer-related hospital treatments are for males aged 40 years and over.

There are no fixed schedules for updates, however it is intended to update the modelled estimates shown in the Australian Cancer Atlas after an extra 1-2 years of data become available. Please [subscribe] if you would like to be notified of any updates or enhancements to the Australian Cancer Atlas.

For all cancers, data for cancers diagnosed between 2010 and 2019 are included. When considering cancer survival, this is based on the experience of people diagnosed with cancer since 2001 and alive at some point during 2010-2019.

The years of data used for other measures varied. For example, data for breast cancer and bowel cancer screening were from 2019 and 2020 and for cervical screening from 2018 to 2022. These time periods are consistent with the recommended two-year screening intervals for breast and bowel cancer screening and five-year screening interval for cervical screening.

Data for risk factors and PSA testing were from 2017 to 2018 and for prostate cancer-related hospital was from 2007 to 2016.

For cancer diagnosis and survival, changes in geographical patterns over time are also shown. Time period varies by cancer type. For additional information, please see e-book.

Since individual geographical areas often have small numbers of people diagnosed with cancer, statistical modelling is used to provide more stability in the mapped patterns and protect the confidentiality of people living in each area.

This modelling starts with the assumption there is no variation in cancer burden, and then sees whether there is sufficient evidence in the observed data to change that assumption.

This is why we need to focus on the more common cancers; if we included cancer types with very small numbers all we would see is a map showing the burden for those cancers is the same in every area across Australia.

These more common cancers were chosen to be consistent with the most commonly diagnosed cancers as reported by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. This includes all cancers combined, along with twenty-nine other cancer types. These includes some combinations of cancer, such as rare cancer types combined, rare blood cancers, soft tissue sarcomas, neuroendocrine tumours, oral cancers and head & neck cancers. Some of these cancers are sex-specific, such as prostate and testicular cancer among men and cervical, ovarian, vulvar and uterine cancer among women. The results for breast cancer are only reported for females in the Atlas. While some men are diagnosed with, and die from breast cancer, the small numbers diagnosed were not sufficient to report in the Atlas.

When selecting the absolute view or the combined view in the Advanced Selection menu, the scatter plot is shown. This combines two pieces of information: the relative estimates using the same colour scheme as the map and the value of the modelled counts for an area. Please see the e-book for further information.

The tree maps for diagnosis show how many people have been diagnosed with a type of cancer compared with how many people have been diagnosed with other types of cancer. The larger the block, the greater the numbers for that cancer. For the risk factors, screening types, testing and hospital treatments the treemaps can be interpreted similarly. The survival treemaps show the number of people who have survived 5 years after their cancer diagnosis. Tree maps provide a method to identify the common cancer types and those that are less common.

There are three different map views. The relative view shows the estimates for each indicator compared to the Australian average. The absolute view shows the modelled absolute counts while combined view shows both relative and absolute maps together.

There is a choice of three types of results for cancer diagnosis, cancer survival and hospital treatment.

Geographical patterns (average) – provides a snapshot of geographical patterns for the latest available time period (up to 10 years). Information is available for both relative and absolute map views.

Geographical patterns for each time period – shows how geographical patterns across Australia have changed over different time periods. This is available for relative estimates only, where the area-specific rates for each time period are compared to the Australian average for that time period.

Changes over time for each geographical area – shows how the rates for each SA2 have changed over all time periods with data available. This is also available for relative estimates only, where the area-specific rates for each time period are compared to the Australian average over the combined time period. These changes reflect the national trends over time in many cases.

For cancer screening, PSA testing and cancer risk factors, only Geographical Patterns (average) is accessible.

For all cancers, data for cancers diagnosed between 2010 and 2019 are included. When considering cancer survival, this is based on the experience of people diagnosed with cancer since 2001 and alive at some point during 2010-2019.

The years of data used for other measures varied. For example, data for breast cancer and bowel cancer screening were from 2019 and 2020 and for cervical screening from 2018 to 2022. These time periods are consistent with the recommended two-year screening intervals for breast and bowel cancer screening and five-year screening interval for cervical screening.

Data for risk factors and PSA testing were from 2017 to 2018 and for prostate cancer-related hospital treatments was from 2007 to 2016.

For cancer diagnosis and survival, changes in geographical patterns over time are also shown. Time period varies by cancer type. For additional information, please see e-book

Since individual geographical areas often have small numbers of people diagnosed with cancer, statistical modelling is used to provide more stability in the mapped patterns and protect the confidentiality of people living in each area.

This modelling starts with the assumption there is no variation in cancer burden, and then sees whether there is sufficient evidence in the observed data to change that assumption.

This is why we need to focus on the more common cancers; if we included cancer types with very small numbers all we would see is a map showing the burden for those cancers is the same in every area across Australia.

These more common cancers were chosen to be consistent with the most commonly diagnosed cancers as reported by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. This includes all cancers combined, along with twenty-nine other cancer types. These includes some combinations of cancer, such as rare cancer types combined, rare blood cancers, soft tissue sarcomas, neuroendocrine tumours, oral cancers and head & neck cancers. Some of these cancers are sex-specific, such as prostate and testicular cancer among men and cervical, ovarian, vulvar and uterine cancer among women. The results for breast cancer are only reported for females in the Atlas. While some men are diagnosed with, and die from breast cancer, the small numbers diagnosed were not sufficient to report in the Atlas.

In addition to cancer diagnosis and survival, the Atlas 2.0 now includes cancer screening (bowel, cervical, breast) and PSA testing, cancer risk factors and in-patient treatments for prostate cancer. It also includes maps showing how geographical patterns have changed over time, maps showing modelled counts (in addition to relative estimates) and comparative maps that combine results for two different measures on the same map. An expanded list of cancer types are available, and diagnosis and survival statistics are available by clinical characteristics such as cancer stage. Navigation and visualisations have been enhanced, and the results are based on more contemporary data.

The Australian Cancer Atlas is an interactive, online atlas designed to show how the impact of cancer varies across small geographical areas for the whole country.

The maps show results that are produced using statistical modelling of real data from various data sources, including Australia’s state and territory population-based cancer registries, hospital data, screening registers, Medicare data and survey data.

Since individual geographical areas often have small populations, this modelling is used to provide more stability in the mapped patterns and protect the confidentiality of people living in each area. The modelling also helps us to quantify the level of uncertainty, or imprecision, in the mapped estimates. These modelled estimates are called ‘smoothed estimates’, because they smooth out the random fluctuations in the original data. Further details about this modelling can be found in the technical report.

There are two main reasons: data privacy and statistical stability. Data privacy relates to the responsibility of data custodians to protect the identity of the individuals who are included in their data. Statistical stability relates to the inherent random fluctuations of statistics that occur when there are small numbers of records; the smaller the numbers the more they fluctuate, making correct interpretation difficult.

These issues are particularly important when considering data for small geographical areas. Small areas have small populations and correspondingly low numbers of people with cancer. Modelled estimates help us to see the real differences in the underlying cancer rates between areas without compromising privacy while allowing for natural fluctuations.

The issues of data privacy and statistical stability are also relevant to the other indicators related to cancer burden presented in the Atlas: screening, PSA testing; hospital treatment and risk factors. Hence only modelled results are included.