Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, yet the national screening rate for eligible individuals is around 16%. Early detection through low-dose computed tomography (LDCTs) are key to survival, as lung cancer has one of the lowest 5-year survival rates (28.4%) nationally.

The Screening Saves pilot program is an implementation science approach to increasing lung cancer screening rates by focusing on four key strategies: (1) foster intentional community health outreach through partnerships with hospitals and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), (2) educating primary care providers (PCPs) to increase adherence to lung screening guidelines, (3) targeted media outreach campaign to enhance public awareness, and (4) implement a statewide navigator network to share best practices and directly target patient barriers such as transportation, scheduling, insurance, and follow up care.

Screening Saves utilizes mixed-methods data from provider focus groups, patients, current screening data, and navigator survey responses to inform program design. As of 2025, the lung screening navigator network has grown to over 150+ participants across five states, provider and community education has begun in collaboration with a large health system in Eastern NC, and the media campaign is live, providing accessible screening resources available on Lung Cancer Initiative’s (LCI) website.

Our preliminary findings suggest that this “all hands” approach is improving early detection rates in Eastern North Carolina. Our partners have reported positive impacts of direct community-based interventions, as the program provides a scalable blueprint for improving early detection rates nationwide- especially in rural communities.

Background: NYU Langone and community-based organization (CBO) partners co-developed and administered a community health survey to identify cancer-related needs and assets in diverse, low-income, under-researched immigrant communities in the Perlmutter Cancer Center (PCC)’s New York City catchment area of lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk counties.

Objectives: We present a community-based participatory research process to generate seven community-facing data findings reports led in partnership with the PCC’s community advisory board and advisory network of CBOs and community leaders.

Methods: An iterative, community-engaged process included multiple rounds of discussion and consensus-building across a team of data analysts, programmatic staff, community health workers, and community partners to a) prioritize data to include in summary reports, and b) reach agreement on report format. Understanding community plans to utilize data and data findings (e.g., resource allocation, community outreach, program planning) guided report layout and design. We elicited input through regular facilitated meetings with CBO partners, open-ended discussions, data presentations, and group voting to reach consensus on community-preferred topics of interest, change solutions, dissemination modalities, and community-identified language needs.

Results: Community report design, content, and delivery represent a collective effort to present meaningful data report-back that may be used to guide actionable research, policy, and practice decisions and to inform community health programming and initiatives that address cancer health disparities in under-resourced communities.

Conclusions: Multi-level, multi-year engagement strategies help to sustain active bidirectional exchange and partner involvement in the community-academic research co-design process. Delivery of tangible support during regular touchpoints maintains trust between partners.

People facing serious illness must gain universal access to holistic, quality care delivered by an interdisciplinary team. Despite proven benefits, supportive care suffers from low utilization due to lack of awareness, provider training, or unclear referral criteria used to improve care coordination. This problem is exacerbated by a fragmentated health care system. This creates unnecessary barriers to expanding supportive care to the population in need.

The Value of Supportive Cancer Care (VSCC) Pilot is convening a national clinical advisory council, as well as health systems, health plans, and serious illness coalitions in 4 states to develop standardized eligibility criteria and referral pathway for cancer patients’ referral to supportive care. This referral pathway will be piloted at the health systems in partnership with participating health plans with the goal to enroll and deliver interdisciplinary supportive care to cancer patients under value-based payment. The initiative will also produce educational materials and training for clinical oncology staff to coordinate with supportive care teams, as well as educational materials for patients and families to ensure understanding of and access to supportive care.

The initiative will develop a quality measurement framework based on evidence-based standards, such as those endorsed by the ASCO, and a methodology to evaluate the impact of the pilots over a defined timeframe. This study will help demonstrate that early supportive care results in better outcomes, better quality of life, and lower costs, and will contribute to building the body of evidence of the benefits of integrating supportive care into oncology services.

Introduction: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center implemented the Project 80% Colorectal Cancer Screening Program to reduce CRC morbidity and mortality among uninsured patients through collaboration with a network of 176 community-based clinics and gastroenterologists in under resourced Texas areas.

Materials and Methods: Project 80% implements evidence-based interventions (EBIs) such as patient reminders, patient navigation, provider and patient education. Eligible clinic patients receive annual FITs, while those at increased risk are directly referred to colonoscopy. Patients with positive FITs are referred for colonoscopy, including surveillance and polypectomy if needed. Enhanced navigation services support referrals for endoscopy and cancer treatment. The program is evaluated for its effectiveness in increasing EBI implementation, CRC screening completion, colonoscopy adherence, timely follow-up for positive FITs, and navigation to CRC treatment.

Results: Since 2014, 134,958 FITs have been resulted with 8,901 positive FITs, and 7,944 total colonoscopies completed. The mean age of patients at FIT and at colonoscopy was 56.0 years. Most were female (63.2%). This effort produced 2,853 polypectomies and 153 patients diagnosed with cancer were navigated to treatment. The colonoscopy completion rate was 69.2% for patients with positive FITs and 71.5% for direct referrals.

Conclusion: Project 80% has boosted CRCS rates in partnering clinics, with the post-pandemic period displaying a widening gap between FIT-positive referrals and completed colonoscopies. More recently, to bridge this gap and enhance follow-up care to patients, improved navigation services were introduced.

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer-related mortality among African Americans. Understanding how health beliefs affect health behaviors is essential to improving CRC screening adherence.

Methods: This observational study examined the relationship between health beliefs and CRC screening adherence within the context of a community-based CRC screening program BEAT Cancer (Black-Equity-Access and-Treatment for-Cancer). The primary outcome was the fecal immunochemical test (FIT) return rate. Independent variables included socio-demographics (age, gender, income), healthcare access (insurance, primary care access), health behavior (smoking status), and health beliefs related to CRC screening (perceived benefits, barriers, susceptibility, self-efficacy, and social influence). Multivariable logistic regression with backward selection was used to generate adjusted odds ratios (AORs) between health beliefs and screening adherence (FIT return).

Results: The study included 471 African American participants aged 45-75 who received a FIT kit between 10/1/2023 and 2/1/2025. The overall FIT return rate was 34.8%. Bivariate analyses showed that participants who returned their FIT kits were older (59.0 vs. 57.0 years; p=0.01), more likely to be non-smokers (73.0% vs. 62.4%; p=0.02), and had higher beliefs in CRC screening benefits (3.6 vs. 3.5; p=0.006), self-efficacy (3.3 vs. 3.2; p=0.02), and social influence (3.1 vs. 2.9; p=0.003). After adjusting for age and smoking status, social influence (AOR: 1.60; CI: 1.11-2.32) and self-efficacy (AOR: 1.53; CI: 1.01-2.32) remained significantly associated with FIT return.

Conclusion: Self-efficacy and social influence were positively associated with CRC screening adherence, highlighting the potential of community partnerships and advocacy efforts to improve screening rates among African Americans.

Background: One in eight Native American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, yet keeping up with screening is challenging. The Healthy People 2030 mammography target is 80.3%; it was 39% in the White Mountain Apache community in 2018. We developed Community Awareness Resilience Empowerment (CARE) to close this gap—a culturally tailored intervention, led by a team of Apache women's health coaches.

Methods: We conducted a randomized waitlist control trial to evaluate the efficacy of CARE on mammography completion within 3-months of referral. The intervention (CARE+COACH) included education and 1:1 coaching. The waitlist control group (CARE) received education with an option to receive coaching after 3-months.

Results: Presently, 78% (N=234) of the sample has completed the study; retention rate is 97%. Interim analysis showed 74% received mammography within 3-months, and nearly half had within 1-month. In total, 28% of participants in the waitlist control group did not receive mammography by 3-months; of which 41% requested a coach, but only 1 individual completed by 4-months. Completion rates were similar by study arm. *Full results to be presented at conference.*

Conclusion: Findings from this study underscore the power of the women's health coaches—who are vital to the success of programs like CARE. Their dedication to the community and leading with culture speak to the high retention and completion rates. Sustaining and scaling cancer screening efforts requires synergistic community- and clinic-based partnerships and systematic procedures to support diverse patient and family needs so that every woman can thrive.

Background: HPV vaccination could prevent over 37,000 HPV-related cancers every year in the US. However, uptake among adolescents ages 9-12 remains low, especially after drops in HPV vaccination rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Cancer Society (ACS) is determined to drive progress towards the Healthy People 2030 goal of 80% of adolescents receiving all recommended doses of HPV vaccination. ACS’ Implementation Science team provides technical assistance to HPV coalitions and state-level partnerships to strengthen their capacity to promote HPV vaccination. In 2025, ACS’ strategic focus is on the 12 states with the largest adolescent populations – California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, New Jersey, and Virginia. The goal is to facilitate connections between state and regional coalitions, increase the sharing of best practices and success strategies, and educate state-level decision makers who influence HPV vaccination uptake.

Methods: To evaluate these efforts, qualitative interviews will be conducted in Fall 2025. Interviews will be led by a member of the Implementation Science team, and interviewees will include ACS staff who lead HPV vaccination work in their state. Interview objectives are to describe what state engagement looks like across states, the roles that ACS staff play within coalitions, how work across types of coalitions differ, successes and challenges, and additional support needed.

Results: This presentation will describe themes, lessons learned, and key recommendations from interviews.

Conclusions: Engaging state-level partners to prioritize and drive HPV vaccination work in their communities is essential in the fight against cancer.

Background

Despite the increasing number of lung cancer screening (LCS) facilities, screening rates remain low with substantial regional differences. We analyzed state-level variations in the number of facilities and screening prevalence using an ecological study.

Methods

We utilized the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data to estimate statewide LCS prevalence. Considering the limited survey sample and current LCS guidelines, we categorized individuals who had a CT scan for LCS purposes within the past year, among former/current smokers aged 50-79 years, as having a recommended LCS. The facility list was compiled from the American College of Radiology-LCS Registry. The number of facilities was adjusted based on the estimated population size for each state using complex survey weights to account for the varying screening-recommended population sizes across states.

Results

Vermont had the lowest absolute number of facilities (62), while Florida had the highest number (3,527). However, considering the population-adjusted number of facilities, Arkansas had the lowest number of facilities (0.175), while Connecticut had the highest number (0.523) per 1,000 recommended individuals. The LCS prevalence also significantly varied across states, from 2.7% (95% confidence interval: 2.1%-3.4%) in Utah to 8.8% (7.1%-10.5%) in Kentucky. A weak positive correlation was observed between the population-adjusted number of facilities and the LCS prevalence (r=0.371, p<.01).

Conclusions

This ecological study may unveil existing disparities in the provision of screening facilities across states, potentially impacting LCS rates. Strategically allocating facilities across regions based on population scale is suggested as a more effective approach to increasing the LCS rate.