Journal of Preventive Medicine

Addressing Gender Differences and Colon Cancer Screening Disparities in Spanish-preferred Populations

Objective: Colorectal Cancer (CRC) is the third leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. The United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening for average-risk individuals aged 45 through 75. Screening is lowest amongst Latinx/Hispanic. Our study aims to improve CRC screening in Spanish-preferred patients by disseminating Spanish voiced Online Patient Education Material (OPEM) on CRC.

Methods: In overdue patients, we conducted a non-randomized study comparing standard care in Family Medicine (FM) and standard care plus Spanish CRC screening OPEM in Internal Medicine (IM). IM patients were randomized to get either a male-narrated or female-narrated OPEM. We evaluated whether baseline characteristics differed for the two study arms using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test or Fisher's exact test. For the primary goal, we examined whether there was a difference in screening completion between the intervention and standard care groups using Fisher’s exact test. Using descriptive statistics, we investigated whether there was a difference in characteristics for those who completed screening and those who did not. In the intervention group, we compared the gender concordance of the patient and the video narrator by screening completion.

Results: We had 54 patients in IM and 50 in FM, differing only in age, with medians of 60 and 53. Post-study, 14.8% (8/54) in IM and 6.0% (3/50) in FM completed CRC screening, which was not significantly different, p=0.21. Patients who completed screening had higher median ages, 61 vs 55. In the intervention, f ive of the eight patients who completed screening were female and received a female narrator. For the other three patients, two were male with female narrators and one was female with a male narrator.

Conclusion: Providing Spanish OPEM increased screening in the IM department by eight patients. Incorporating culturally tailored education mitigates language-related health disparities and improves screening rates.

Author(s): Brittany Strelow, Allison Moysis, Angela Fought, Anne Carmean, Abby Gilliland, Matt Shelden and Danielle Oâ??Laughlin

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