A RCT of Outreach and Inreach Strategies for Boosting CRC Screening in a Federally-Qualified Health Center

Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening saves lives, but screening rates are low among underserved populations, particularly Latinos. The screening rate in the predominantly Latino population served by San Ysidro Health Center (SYHC, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC)), is just 31%, similar to that reported for Latinos nationally, but lower than the overall national average of 65%. Previous research has demonstrated that inreach interventions at point of medical care such as patient navigation after screening referral, and outreach outside of usual medical care (such as with mailed invitations) can increase screening rates among underserved populations. However, since these have undergone limited evaluation among low income predominantly Spanish-speaking Latinos, it is unclear which approach is best, and whether implementing both approaches would be synergistic for optimizing screening rates. We hypothesize that two culturally and linguistically tailored interventions: a) an inreach strategy (IR, consisting of community health worker-delivered in clinic education regarding CRC screening and other components), and b) an outreach strategy (OS, consisting of mailed invitations to complete screening with an enclosed fecal immunochemical test (FIT) and telephone reminders) can substantially increase screening, and further, that the two interventions together will be substantially better than either alone. To test these hypotheses, we propose a randomized trial comparing usual care, IR, OS, and IR+OS for CRC screening.