Think Pink? The Effects and Efficiency of Breast Cancer Awareness Campaigns

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Using a 5% sample of Medicare claims data we find that October (and November) are associated with a 25% increase in the utilization of mammograms relative to the “average” month. We find that the “October” cohort is less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, somewhat more likely to be diagnosed with Stage 0 breast cancer conditional upon diagnosis, but have similar 1, 2 and 3 year mortality and similar late stage diagnosis, both conditional upon diagnosis. A model of a policy intervention to increase mammography rates suggests that among women with breast cancer who do not receive regular mammograms there is a two percentage point increase in 5-year survival. The proposed policy intervention is associated with an increase of $1,000 in expected total medical expenditure per breast cancer patient over 5 years. JEL Codes: I11, I18, H4