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Variation in the cost of promoting cancer screening
Real world experience from CDC'S colorectal cancer control program in the USA
Tangka, F., Subramanian, S., Hoover, S., Cole Beebe, M., DeGroff, A., Joseph, K., Royalty, J., & Saraiya, M. (2014). Variation in the cost of promoting cancer screening: Real world experience from CDC'S colorectal cancer control program in the USA. Asia-Pacific Journal of Clinical Oncology, 10(Suppl. 9), 240-241. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajco.12332
Background: Colorectal cancer is one of the most common types of cancer and cancer-related deaths in the United States. To improve colorectal cancer rates, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiated the Colorectal Cancer Program (CRCCP) across 29 grantees in the United States. The goal of the CRCCP is to increase CRC screening rates to 80% among the population aged 50 and older.
Aim: To assess costs of screening promotion activities across CRCCP grantees.
Methods: Each year all grantees complete a cost assessment tool that collects information on program funding and expenditures, including screening promotion, screening provision, and overarching activities, such as program management, data collection and administration. Within screening promotion activities, costs for 11 activities are captured. Descriptive analysis is conducted using data from the first three years of the CRCCP to examine how grantees’ costs vary across screening promotion activities.
Results: Overall, in years 1–3, over $40 million CDC and other dollars were spent on screening promotion activities. The largest cost category of screening promotion was mass media followed by outreach/incentives/education, patient navigation and support, and small media. These four categories comprised slightly more than 70% of grantees’ screening promotion budgets.
When grantees were separated into three categories based on their screening promotion expenditures (66th percentiles), the picture changed. While mass media remained the largest spending category, grantees with the highest screening promotion budgets spent more on patient navigation, while grantees with the mid-range and lowest screening promotion budgets spent more on outreach/incentives/education.
Conclusions: In the first three years of the CRCCP, nearly half of total dollars allocated to the CRCCP were spent on screening promotion activities. These findings reflect the cost needed to educate the population about colorectal cancer screening and public health program resources.
