Missing Millions · 2026 estimate
Massachusetts is missing 200,400 lung cancer screenings.
About 1 in 12 adults ages 50 to 80 in Massachusetts qualifies for lung cancer screening and hasn't been screened. Find your county below.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates 2025; CDC PLACES 2025; USPSTF 2021; American Lung Association, State of Lung Cancer 2025; CMS Medicare Physician and Other Practitioners 2024 (CPT 71271). Modeled estimates; see methodology below.
The gap, county by county
Shade shows how many adults ages 50 to 80 are missing screening. Select a county.
Middlesex County
35,000
missing lung cancer screenings (estimate)
- Qualify for screening47,800
- Adults 50 to 80 missing screening1 in 15
- Medicare low-dose CT scans, 20242,029
Every Massachusetts county, ranked
Ranked by estimated missing screenings. Select a column to sort.
| 1Middlesex County | 35,000 | 1 in 15 |
| 2Worcester County | 27,300 | 1 in 11 |
| 3Essex County | 24,100 | 1 in 12 |
| 4Bristol County | 24,100 | 1 in 9 |
| 5Plymouth County | 17,900 | 1 in 12 |
| 6Norfolk County | 17,200 | 1 in 15 |
| 7Hampden County | 17,100 | 1 in 9 |
| 8Suffolk County | 16,200 | 1 in 12 |
| 9Barnstable County | 8,700 | 1 in 13 |
| 10Berkshire County | 4,900 | 1 in 11 |
| 11Hampshire County | 3,900 | 1 in 14 |
| 12Franklin County | 2,800 | 1 in 11 |
| 13Dukes County | 740 | 1 in 13 |
| 14Nantucket County | 340 | 1 in 15 |
Methodology
How we estimate the gap
A modeled estimate from public data only. It is not a count of patients and contains no patient information.
missing = adults 50 to 80 × county smoking rate × national eligibility factor × (1 − state screening rate)
- Adults 50 to 80: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates, Vintage 2025
- Smoking: CDC PLACES 2025 release (Kentucky and Pennsylvania: 2024 release)
- Eligibility: USPSTF 2021 criteria, scaled to about 14.5 million eligible adults nationally
- Screening rates: American Lung Association, State of Lung Cancer 2025
- Who is missing: Census population estimates (age) and American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 (language)
- Screening activity: CMS Medicare fee-for-service claims for low-dose CT (CPT 71271), 2024, by provider location
Estimates under 50 are shown as "fewer than 50"; others are rounded. Full methodology
Many of them are already your patients.
Oatmeal Health helps health systems and community health centers find, navigate, and screen the people who qualify, alongside the care teams you already have.
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