Abstract
Background CRC mortality rates are higher for individuals with a lower socioeconomic status (SES). Screening could influence health inequalities. We therefore aimed to investigate SES differences in participation and diagnostic yield of FIT screening. Methods All invitees in 2014 and 2015 in the Dutch national CRC screening programme were included in the analyses. We used area SES as a measure for SES and divided invitees into quintiles, with Quintile 1 being the highest SES. Logistic regression analysis was used to compare the participation rate, positivity rate, colonoscopy uptake, positive predictive value (PPV) and detection rate across the SES groups. Results Participation to FIT screening was significantly lower for Quintile 5 (67.0%) compared to the other Quintiles (73.0% to 75.1%; adjusted OR quintile 5 versus quintile 1: 0.73, 95%CI: 0.72–0.74), as well as colonoscopy uptake after a positive FIT (adjusted OR 0.73, 95%CI: 0.69–0.77). The detection rate per FIT participant for advanced neoplasia gradually increased from 3.3% in Quintile 1 to 4.0% in Quintile 5 (adjusted OR 1.20%, 95%CI 1.16– PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | February 17, 2022 1 / 11 OPEN ACCESS Citation: van der Meulen MP, Toes-Zoutendijk E, Spaander MCW, Dekker E, Bonfrer JMG, van Vuuren AJ, et al. (2022) Socioeconomic differences in participation and diagnostic yield within the Dutch national colorectal cancer screening programme with faecal immunochemical testing. PLoS ONE 17(2): e0264067. 10.1371/journal.pone.0264067 Editor: Frank T. Kolligs, University of Munich, GERMANY Received: May 6, 2021 Accepted: February 2, 2022 Published: February 17, 2022 Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process; therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. The editorial history of this article is available here: Copyright: © 2022 van der Meulen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: The authors note that the sharing of the speudonymised dataset is not 1.24). As a result of lower participation, the yield per invitee was similar for Quintile 5 (2.04%) and Quintile 1 (2.00%), both being lower than Quintiles 2 to 4 (2.20%-2.28%). Conclusions Screening has the potential to reduce health inequalities in CRC mortality, because of a higher detection in participants with a lower SES. However, in the Dutch screening programme, this is currently offset by the lower participation in this group.