This resource summarizes research on how social health interventions may affect colorectal, breast, and cervical cancer screening. It reviews patient navigation, transportation assistance, bus passes, taxi and rideshare services, free or subsidized screening, financial incentives, and strategies that reduce transportation barriers through self-administered home screening tests, including mailed fecal immunochemical tests (FIT), fecal occult blood tests, and emerging HPV self-collection options.
The brief highlights evidence that patient navigation and transportation-focused supports can increase cancer screening rates, with combined interventions often producing stronger results than either approach alone. It also examines food insecurity, housing instability, insurance barriers, care coordination, shared decision-making, social support, community-engaged approaches, and co-located social services. Implementation considerations include navigator accessibility and reliability, culturally responsive and low-pressure communication, mailing screening tests by default rather than requiring patients to opt in, and reducing financial and logistical barriers to screening.