Abstract 1930: Community outreach and engagement to increase colorectal cancer screening in ethnic minority communities
Authors: Ashing Kimlin , Garcia Marisela , Kidambi Trilokesh , Idos Gregory , Yeung Sophia , Mikail Charleen , Martinez Magaret , Kim Scott , Tran Kim , Gregerson Paul , Round Paul , Lee Cherry , Wu Pei-Chi , Chen Nancy , Denq Stephen , Nonzee Narissa 
Published: April 2023

PURPOSE: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is preventable with screening, yet remains the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. Nationally, CRC screening substantially declined during the COVID-19 pandemic and is underutilized by ethnic minorities and in safety-net systems. Therefore, City of Hope partnered with Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and community and faith-based organizations to improve CRC screening among medically underserved communities.

METHODS: Between October 2020 and October 2022, we implemented a multi-component intervention that included community outreach and education (a multi-ethnic multimedia campaign and community training adapted from the NCI Screen2Save (S2S) program) and clinic-based interventions (provider/staff training and patient education). Intervention reach and training participant surveys were assessed. Within our four FQHC sites, we also compared clinic-level CRC screening rates among age-eligible patients before (June 2021) and after implementation of the clinic-based intervention (June 2022).

RESULTS: Our reach assessment showed that our multi-ethnic multimedia campaign reached 35.4 million impressions, our S2S education training reached 300 diverse community members, and our provider/staff training reached 150 medical providers. Among the 100 providers surveyed, &gt;80% felt confident they could get their patients to complete their CRC screening test and follow-up care. For the clinic-based intervention component, our baseline sample included 11,259 age-eligible patients across the four FQHC sites. Overall CRC screening rates increased from 45% to 52% before vs. after the intervention implementation period. The site with the highest CRC screening rate (&gt;62%) maintained steady rates over the observation period, whereas three sites with lower baseline rates showed greater pre-post improvements (average 15 percentage-point increase).

CONCLUSIONS: An overall increase in CRC screening rates was achieved across FQHCs, despite clinic staffing challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Intervention implementation is ongoing with attempts to document individual, clinic improvements by race/ethnicity.

Keyword 1: Cancer risk Keyword 2: Cancer detection

Citation Format: Kimlin Ashing, Marisela Garcia, Trilokesh Kidambi, Gregory Idos, Sophia Yeung, Charleen Mikail, Magaret Martinez, Scott Kim, Kim Tran, Paul Gregerson, Paul Round, Cherry Lee, Pei-Chi Wu, Nancy Chen, Stephen Denq, Narissa Nonzee. Community outreach and engagement to increase colorectal cancer screening in ethnic minority communities [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 1930.