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 one percentage point increase in 5-year survival.  The proposed policy intervention is associated with an increase of $8,000 in expected total medical expenditure per breast cancer patient over 5 years.