Community collaboration to advance racial/ethnic equity in colorectal Cancer screening: Protocol for a multilevel intervention to improve screening and follow-up in community Health centers.

Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening utilization is low among low-income, uninsured, and minority populations that receive care in community health centers (CHCs). There is a need for evidence-based interventions to increase screening and follow-up care in these settings.
Methods: A multilevel, multi-component pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial is being conducted at 8 CHCs in two metropolitan areas (Boston and Los Angeles), with two arms: (1) Mailed FIT outreach with text reminders, and (2) Mailed FIT-DNA with patient support. We also include an additional CHC in Rapid City (South Dakota) that follows a parallel protocol for FIT-DNA but is not randomized due to lack of a comparison group. Eligible individuals in participating clinics are primary care patients ages 45-75, at average-risk for CRC, and overdue for CRC screening. Participants with abnormal screening results are offered navigation for follow-up colonoscopy and CRC risk assessment.
Results: The primary outcome is the completion rate of CRC screening at 90 days. Secondary outcomes include the screening completion rate at 180 days and the rate of colonoscopy completion within 6 months among participants with an abnormal result. Additional goals are to enhance our understanding of facilitators and barriers to CRC risk assessment in CHC settings.
Conclusions: This study assesses the effectiveness of two multilevel interventions to increase screening participation and follow-up after abnormal screening in under-resourced clinical settings, informing future efforts to address CRC disparities.
Trial Registration: NCT05714644.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Folasade P. May: Exact Sciences: Advisory Board Sapna Syngal: inventor of the PREMM model (the intellectual property of which is owned by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute); research funding by Exact Sciences, Biological Dynamics, Inc.; consultant for Natera, Inc.
(Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)