Sioux Falls expands mammogram access during Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and health officials across South Dakota are making a straightforward pitch: if you haven't had a mammogram recently, now is the time to schedule one. The urgency is rooted in numbers that matter. In South Dakota, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women. Each year, roughly 613 women receive that diagnosis, and about 115 die from the disease. Nationally, breast cancer ranks as the second leading cause of cancer death among women overall, though for Black and Hispanic women it is the leading cause. The lifetime risk is significant enough that public health officials cite it plainly: approximately one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in her life.

What makes this message worth hearing is not just the prevalence of the disease, but what early detection can accomplish. Mammograms have demonstrably changed the trajectory of breast cancer in America. Since 1990, screening has helped reduce breast cancer mortality in the United States by nearly 40 percent. The five-year survival rate for invasive breast cancer now stands at 90.6 percent, a figure that reflects the power of catching the disease in its earliest stages, sometimes up to three years before a woman would notice any symptoms. When breast cancer is found early, treatment is most effective. The math is straightforward: screening saves lives.

Yet there is a gap between what screening can do and what screening is actually happening. The 2025 Sioux Falls MSA Community Health Report documents a troubling trend: mammogram completion rates are declining across communities in the region. Even in the Sioux Falls area, where rates are slightly higher than state and national averages, only about half of women ages 65 to 74 received an annual mammogram. This suggests that many women who could benefit from screening are not getting it, and some of those women may face financial barriers.

South Dakota's All Women Count! program exists to remove at least one obstacle. The program provides free or low-cost breast and cervical cancer screenings to women who are uninsured or underinsured, serving women ages 40 through 64. Participants can access screening at more than 250 healthcare locations across the state, including family clinics, hospitals, and mobile mammography units. The program covers both screening and diagnostic services, and it pays providers directly, so eligible women do not have to navigate billing themselves. In Minnehaha County, which includes Sioux Falls, 1,708 women qualified for the breast screening program during the 2023–2024 period. In Lincoln County, 348 women qualified. Yet the Department of Health estimates that 1,258 eligible women in Minnehaha County and 307 in Lincoln County remain unserved—women who qualify but have not yet accessed the program.

In the Sioux Falls area itself, mammograms are available through Avera Health and Sanford Health, the region's two largest health systems, as well as other participating clinics. Both systems recommend annual screenings beginning at age 40, or earlier for women with personal or family risk factors. Avera operates breast screening centers at multiple locations, including its dedicated Breast Center at Prairie Center and at hospitals in Dell Rapids, Flandreau, and Brookings. Sanford offers screening through the Edith Sanford Breast Center and clinics across the region, extending into neighboring communities in Iowa and Minnesota. Both health systems also operate mobile 3D mammography units that travel to smaller towns—Brandon, Harrisburg, Tea, Canistota, Lennox, and others—bringing screening closer to women who might otherwise have to travel to reach it.

To access the All Women Count! program, women can visit GetScreenedSD.org or call 1-800-738-2301. To schedule directly with Avera, they can visit avera.org or call a location of their choice. Sanford patients can schedule through My Sanford Chart or by calling a clinic directly. The practical barriers to screening—finding a location, making an appointment, paying for the test—have been substantially reduced. What remains is the decision to act.

Health officials frame screening not as a burden but as an act of agency. As one physician quoted in Sanford Health materials put it, regular mammograms offer women the opportunity to catch breast cancer in its earliest and most treatable stages, ultimately saving lives. Screening empowers women to take control of their health. The message for October, and for every month that follows, is clear: the tools exist, the access is there, and the evidence of benefit is overwhelming. The next step belongs to the woman reading this.