Supporting Choice for Cervical Screening
Project Details
Supporting Choice for Cervical Screening: HPV self-collection to improve equity and participation in Australia's National Cervical Screening Program
Self-collection is helping remove barriers to cervical screening. Our project works with communities and the health workforce to ensure everyone can make choices about how they would like to participate in cervical screening.
Current opportunities! Healthcare providers who have a role in cervical screening can fill out our survey on self-collection here (available until 30th April 2026)
Project background
Australia’s National Cervical Screening Program has strong participation, but some people still face barriers and are under-screened, increasing their risk of cervical cancer. Since 2022, the program has offered eligible people the choice between a clinician-collected cervical sample or a self-collected vaginal sample for HPV testing—making screening more accessible and inclusive.
Supporting Choice aims to generate evidence about how to make this choice more equitable.
Project synopsis
Supporting Choice for Cervical Screening, is a collaborative research project, co-led by The University of Melbourne and The University of Sydney, that aims to generate evidence on how the choice for self-collection can be implemented, across a range of services and settings, in ways that ensure equitable access and increased participation for people who currently experience screening barriers.
We are working with members of the health care workforce, and with members of priority under-screened communities, to understand their experiences and proposed solutions to improving screening access. Bringing these understandings together, we will work to jointly design, test and evaluate solutions.
What we have done so far
Community engagement:
Between 2022 and 2026 we:
Established a Community and Consumer Advisory Panel, which has provided guidance on all elements of the project. We extend our thanks for the past and ongoing participation of all CCAP members in our work.
Ran two general population surveys on awareness and experiences of self-collection and preferences for participating in cervical screening in the future. These surveys were run in partnership with the Screen Your Way project team at Yardhura Walani, Australian National University.
Held interviews and focus groups with 59 community members to understand their experiences and views of cervical screening and self-collection.
Ran research prioritisation workshops – with community members, healthcare professionals and other stakeholders.
See our research outputs from these activities under ‘Project Outcomes’
Workforce and stakeholder engagement
Between 2022 and 2026 we:
Ran our first National survey for clinical and non-clinical healthcare professionals involved in the provision of cervical screening.
Our second survey is now open (available until 30 April 2026) and can be accessed here.
Conducted interviews with 132 healthcare professionals and those who provide health services for selected priority populations: people who are living with a physical disability, people who identify as LGBTQ+ or people who are intersex, and people with refugee or asylum seeker backgrounds.
Ran a series of research prioritisation workshops with the cervical screening workforce, stakeholders, and community members to identify and design solutions to the key barriers identified through the Supporting Choice project.
Developed an implementation toolkit to support organisations in planning, running, and evaluating outreach activities for cervical screening.
See our research outputs under ‘Project Outcomes’
Collaborators
- The University of Sydney (co-lead)
- Kirby Institute
- Australian National University (ANU)
- Cancer Council Victoria
- Cancer Council Western Australia
- Australian Centre for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer (ACPCC)
- University of Newcastle
- University of New South Wales
Research Team
Chief Investigators
- Associate Professor Claire Nightingale - Project Lead (University of Melbourne)
- Associate Professor Megan Smith - Project Lead (University of Sydney)
- Professor Julia Brotherton (University of Melbourne)
- Professor Angela Kelly-Hanku (Kirby Institute)
- Associate Professor Rachael Dodd (University of Sydney)
- Associate Professor Lisa Whop (ANU)
- Professor Deborah Bateson (University of Sydney)
- Professor Karen Canfell (University of Sydney)
- Professor Marion Saville AM (ACPCC)
- Professor Andrew Vallely (Kirby Institute)
Associate Investigators
- A/Prof Allison Cummins (University of Newcastle)
- Kate Broun (Cancer Council Victoria)
- Melissa Treby (Cancer Council WA)
- A/Prof Natalie Taylor (UNSW)
- Robyn Bransby (Consumer Advisor)
- Dr Emily Karahalios (The University of Melbourne)
- Dr Nicola Creagh (The University of Sydney and Honorary Fellow University of Melbourne)
Research team
- Dr Tessa Saunders (The University of Melbourne)
- Dr Paula Jops (Kirby Institute/UNSW)
- Dr Louiza Velentzis (The University of Sydney)
- Claire Bavor (The University of Melbourne) – PhD Candidate
- Chloe Jennett (The University of Sydney) – PhD Candidate
- Alegra Walter (Kirby Institute/UNSW)
- Maleeha Ashfaq (The University of Melbourne)
- Madeleine Clarke
- Kate Flynn
- Mikayla Wolf
Funding
Funded through an NHMRC Targeted Call for Research Grant
Research Outcomes
Implementation Toolkit
This toolkit provides practical tools and information to help organisations plan, run, and evaluate cervical screening outreach activities for priority populations in diverse settings. It supports both standalone health promotion and integrated health promotion with screening provision.
The toolkit was developed by the Evaluation and Implementation Science Unit at The University of Melbourne, The University of Sydney and the Australian Centre for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer as part of the Supporting Choice for Cervical Screening program of research, with input from experienced organisations nationwide.
Find out more and access the toolkit here
Watch the webinar: Getting out there! A guide to cervical screening engagement through community outreach
Peer-reviewed publications
Qualitative insights into the acceptability of self-collection for cervical screening amongst under- and never-screened groups in Australia (Jops P, Wolter A, Bavor C, Dodd R, Smith MA, Saunders T, Nightingale C, Kelly-Hanku A. Qualitative insights into the acceptability of self-collection for cervical screening amongst under-and never-screened groups in Australia. BMC Public Health. 2026 Mar 20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-026-27034-8)
How would Australian women and people with a cervix like to access self-collection for cervical screening? Screening preferences from a national survey (Bavor C, Jennett C, Phillips E, Mitchell L, Saunders T, Whop L, Kelly-Hanku A, Bateson D, Brotherton JM, Smith MA, Nightingale C. How would Australian women and people with a cervix like to access self-collection for cervical screening? Screening preferences from a national survey. Cancer Causes & Control. 2026 Mar;37(3):47. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-026-02128-1)
"I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all”: A qualitative study exploring healthcare professional and service provider perspectives of using innovative models of cervical screening to improve equitable access to self-collection (Bavor C, Saunders T, Wolfe M, Smith MA, Creagh N, Bateson D, Kelly‐Hanku A, Jops P, Saville M, Taylor N, Broun K. ‘I Don't Think There Is a One‐Size‐Fits‐All’: A Qualitative Study Exploring Healthcare Professional and Service Provider Perspectives of Using Innovative Models of Cervical Screening to Improve Equitable Access to Self‐Collection. Cancer Medicine. 2025 Jun;14(11):e70981. https://doi.org/10.1002/cam4.70981)
Experiences of HPV self-collection among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and people with a cervix (joint with Screen Your Way) (Mitchell LE, Phillips E, Jennett CJ, Bavor C, Saunders T, Nightingale C, Smith MA, Whop LJ, Screen Your Way Investigator Team. Experiences of HPV self-collection among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and people with a cervix. Plos one. 2026 Mar 9;21(3):e0326551. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0326551)
Toward equitable cervical cancer screening: a qualitative study of under- and never-screened groups in Australia – coming soon!
Optimising opportunities for self-collection to improve cervical screening access for people with physical disability in Australia: a qualitative study of service provider perspectives – coming soon!
Posters
How would Australian Women and People with a Cervix like to access self-collection for cervical screening? Screening preferences from a national survey (Presented by Claire Bavor at the 37th International Papillomavirus Conference 2025 (IPVC 2025), Bangkok)
Factors associated with awareness, offer and adoption of self-collection for cervical screening in Australia (Presented by Chloe Jennett at the 37th International Papillomavirus Conference 2025 (IPVC 2025), Bangkok)
Offer them choice: Qualitative insights into the acceptability of self-collection for under-screened and never-screened women and people with a cervix in Australia (Presented by Paula Jops at the 37th International Papillomavirus Conference 2025 (IPVC 2025), Bangkok)
Collaborative prioritisation of strategies to improve implementation of self-collection in Australia – Using nominal group technique to determine shared research priorities (Poster presented by Tessa Saunders at the 37th International Papillomavirus Conference 2025 (IPVC 2025), Bangkok)
Awareness, preference and experience of HPV self-collection among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and people with a cervix (Presented by Louise Mitchell at the Lowitja Institute’s 4th International Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Conference 2025, Adelaide)
Improving access to cervical screening in Australia –Can the choice for self-collection improve equity for priority population groups? (Poster presented by Tessa Saunders at The Eliminating Cervical Cancer Conference 2024 (ECC2024), Melbourne)
Early Insights from the first years of universal access to self-collection in Australia’s National Cervical Screening Program: Experiences of healthcare providers and screen eligible people (Presented by Chloe Jennett at the 36th International Papillomavirus Conference 2024 (IPVC2024), Edinburgh)
Pathology provider reflections on their experience adopting universal access to self-collection as part of the Australian National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP) (Poster presented by Julia Brotherton at the 36th International Papillomavirus Conference (IPVC 2024), Edinburgh)
What is needed for self-collection to achieve equitable access to cervical screening in Australia? Perspectives of healthcare providers (Poster presented by Claire Nightingale at the World Cancer Congress 2024 (WCC 2024), Geneva)
Early findings from surveys and interviews were presented through oral presentations at multiple conferences including at the Cancer and Primary Care Research International Network (Ca-PRI) Cancer in Primary Care Conference 2024 in Melbourne, the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA)’s Screening Conference 2025 in Sydney, and the Eliminating Cervical Cancer Conference 2024 (ECC2024) in Melbourne.
New projects relevant to Supporting Choice:
Working with members of our community advisory panel, we sourced funding for additional projects to build on findings from Supporting Choice:
- Making it a Real Choice – exploring ways to make self-collection devices more accessible for people with disability
- ScreenStar – exploring how peer-led approaches to education and awareness about cervical screening can improve knowledge, awareness and acceptability for people with disability.
If you would like to find out more, please contact Project Coordinator Dr Tessa Saunders.