Interventions to Improve Colon Cancer Screening in Poor Rural Iowa Counties

The goal of the study is to conduct a randomized clinical trial to test several office-based strategies for improving colon cancer screening among individuals who are regular patients at 16 family practice physician offices in the state of Iowa. These offices are members of the Iowa Research Network (IRENE), a rural practice-based research network. The interventions to be tested are increasing in intensity from the usual care provided in the office, to physician chart reminders, mailed educational materials to patients, a fecal immunochemical test with postage-paid return envelope, and a telephone call designed to determine attitudes and barriers to screening, and to motivate subjects to get screened. Our main research questions are: 1)do attitudes toward CRC screening change after providing educational materials about CRC screening? 2)do mailed educational materials and a FIT, with or without a telephone reminder, result in increased rates of CRC testing with the FIT?