R01CA263662

Leveraging social media to increase lung cancer screening awareness, knowledge, and uptake in high-risk populations - project summary/abstract.

Lung cancer screening is recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and has the potential to detect lung cancer at earlier, more treatable stages. However, population uptake of lung cancer screening has been abysmal. It has been 7 years since the USPSTF released its official recommendation, yet less than 5% of screening-eligible Americans have been screened.

Screening-eligible individuals are generally unaware about the option of finding lung cancer early through screening, and our team's prior work revealed that in addition to lack of awareness, screening-eligible individuals in the U.S. do not screen – when they are aware – because of perceived barriers to screening.

If high-risk patient populations are not aware that lung cancer screening exists, then formative work is needed to increase awareness about screening. It is essential to employ novel community-focused strategies to increase awareness about lung cancer screening to reach diverse, screening-eligible individuals who might not otherwise learn about the option to screen.

Our long-term goal is to increase screening uptake among appropriate, high-risk individuals nationwide. Our overall objective in this application is to test the effectiveness of:

1) Leveraging a social media-based platform to reach screening-eligible individuals in the community upstream before they engage with the healthcare system, and
2) A novel, tailored health communication and decision support intervention related to lung cancer screening (LungTalk).

Our central hypothesis is two-fold:
1) Facebook targeted advertisement will be a successful platform to reach high-risk individuals unaware of lung cancer screening, and
2) Tailored compared to non-tailored lung cancer screening information will increase knowledge and improve health beliefs about screening and subsequent screening uptake.

Our study is informed by our prior studies, which led us to consider the importance of increasing awareness and knowledge on a population level from the screening-eligible individuals' perspective as a precursor to health behavior change. Successful use of Facebook to recruit screening-eligible individuals in our prior studies also led us to consider how social media might be used to increase awareness of lung cancer screening and as a platform to link the screening-eligible individual with a tailored health communication and decision support intervention that has the potential to influence screening behavior and uptake.

Using a randomized controlled trial design, we will randomize 500 screening-eligible individuals recruited through Facebook nationwide to receive either a tailored intervention (LungTalk) or non-tailored ACS lung screening informational video.

Specific aims are to:
(1) Examine the use of a social media platform to reach high-risk individuals eligible for lung screening;
(2) Compare the effectiveness of a computer-tailored health communication tool to a web-based ACS lung screening informational video to improve lung cancer screening:
A) Knowledge
B) Health beliefs
C) Screening uptake and completion in a high-risk population; and
(3) Explore the sustainability of a social media-based approach among key stakeholders.

HMH Hospitals Corporation

TO IDENTIFY CANCER RISKS AND RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES, TO IDENTIFY FACTORS THAT CAUSE CANCER IN HUMANS, AND TO DISCOVER AND DEVELOP MECHANISMS FOR CANCER PREVENTION AND PREVENTIVE INTERVENTIONS IN HUMANS. RESEARCH PROGRAMS INCLUDE: (1) CHEMICAL, PHYSICAL AND MOLECULAR CARCINOGENESIS, (2) SCREENING, EARLY DETECTION AND RISK ASSESSMENT, INCLUDING BIOMARKER DISCOVERY, DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION, (3) EPIDEMIOLOGY, (4) NUTRITION AND BIOACTIVE FOOD COMPONENTS, (5) IMMUNOLOGY AND VACCINES, (6) FIELD STUDIES AND STATISTICS, (7) CANCER CHEMOPREVENTION AND INTERCEPTION, (8) PRE-CLINICAL AND CLINICAL AGENT DEVELOPMENT, (9) ORGAN SITE STUDIES AND CLINICAL TRIALS, (10) HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE AND PATIENT-CENTERED OUTCOMES, AND (11) SUPPORTIVE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF SYMPTOMS AND TOXICITIES. SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH (SBIR) PROGRAM: TO EXPAND AND IMPROVE THE SBIR PROGRAM, TO STIMULATE TECHNICAL INNOVATION, TO INCREASE PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIALIZATION OF INNOVATIONS DERIVED FROM FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FUNDING, TO INCREASE SMALL BUSINESS PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, AND TO FOSTER AND ENCOURAGE PARTICIPATION IN INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP BY WOMEN AND SOCIALLY/ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED PERSONS. SMALL BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER (STTR) PROGRAM: TO STIMULATE AND FOSTER SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION THROUGH COOPERATIVE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CARRIED OUT BETWEEN SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS, TO FOSTER TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER THROUGH COOPERATIVE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS, TO INCREASE PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIALIZATION OF INNOVATIONS DERIVED FROM FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FUNDING, AND FOSTER PARTICIPATION IN INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP BY WOMEN AND SOCIALLY/ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED PERSONS.

93.393 - Cancer Cause and Prevention Research

National Cancer Institute (NCI) [HHS - NIH]

New Jersey United States

State-Wide

Innovative Approaches to Studying Cancer Communication in the New Information Ecosystem (R01 Clinical Trial Optional) (PAR-19-348)

Amendment Since initial award the End Date has been shortened from 08/31/27 to 08/31/25 and the total obligations have increased 360% from $744,147 to $3,421,613.