Effectiveness of Interventions to Increase Screening for Gastric and Colorectal Cancer in Korea

Public health centers in Korea play an important role at the community level in encouraging residents toparticipate in cancer screening, usually by sending reminders in the mail and by making phone calls. However,there have not been any studies on the effectiveness of these interventions by public health centers in Korea. Thepurpose of this study was to evaluate this question. The study was limited to male subjects aged 50-59 years livingin one district of Daegu, Korea. A total of 923 subjects were selected for the study among the target population forgastric and colorectal cancer screening as part of the National Cancer Screening Program in 2012. The subjectswere randomly assigned to one of four groups: control, postal intervention, telephone intervention, and telephoneand postal intervention. Three months after the interventions, the results were confirmed by the National HealthInsurance Corporation. Logistic regression analyses were performed to find differences in participation rates incancer screening for each group. Men who received telephone and postal intervention were most likely (40.5%)to undergo gastric cancer screening, in comparison to the men who received telephone intervention only (31.7%),postal intervention only (22.2%) and those in the control group (17.9%). Also, men who received telephone andpostal intervention were most likely (27.8%) to participate in colorectal cancer screening, followed by the menwho received telephone intervention only (24.3%), postal intervention only (16.5%), and men in the controlgroup (13.5%). Combined telephone and postal intervention and telephone only intervention as well producedsignificantly increased rates of participation in cancer screening in comparison to the control group. There wasno significant difference, however, between the postal intervention only and control groups for either colorectalor gastric cancer screening.