Strengths and Limitations of Our Multi-Component Intervention to Increase CRC Screening Rates in a Rural Family Medicine Clinic During Initial COVID-19 Surge, 2020
| Strengths |
| Our survey of exemplar28 providers’ strategies for achieving higher CRC screening rates lends qualitative support to our intervention strategy |
| We used a multi-component intervention strategy in line with Community Preventive Service Task Force recommendations |
| We attempted to “control” our study by comparing our intervention clinic data with regional and national outcomes as well as our own clinic data from year before the pandemic |
| The fact that our CRC screening rates increased during a time when rates were decreasing regionally,25 nationally26,27 and internationally24 adds evidence that our intervention had an impact |
| Limitations |
| Inability to differentiate the individual contribution of each component of our intervention to the overall treatment effect |
| Our study may be more subject to effects of confounding variables due to the lack of randomized, controlled design |
| Based on our self-reported demographics, persons of color and persons without a primary care provider may be under represented in our results |
| Our results based on one, rural Midwest clinic may limit external validity and generalizability |
Abbreviation: CRC, colorectal cancer.