Mobile mammography, race, and insurance: Use trends over a decade at a comprehensive urban cancer center

Purpose: To assess the use of a mobile mammography unit (MMU) as it relates to race and insurance status in the largest county in Kentucky. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 48,324 screening mammograms of 21,857 patients conducted over a 10-year period. Descriptive statistics for patient age, race, and insurance status were computed by entire cohort and within subsets of cohorts. This analysis was limited to trends in use by race and insurance status. To study the patterns of frequency distributions, indiscrete variables were performed using the Pearson χ² test. For continuous variable range, a 95% CI of mean was estimated. Comparisons with a P value less than .05 were considered statistically significant. Results: Self-reported blacks constituted significant use of the MMU (29% v census data demographic reports of 19%). Race significantly correlated with likelihood to screen ≥ three times, with blacks (30.5%) more likely, and whites (27.8%) and Hispanics (20.2%) less likely (P < .001). Insurance status also affected frequency of use (P < .001). Conclusion: In this data set, blacks were more likely to repeat use of the MMU. Although preliminary, these data suggest outreach efforts of mobile mammography are appropriately reaching certain targeted populations.