{"doi":"10.3390/cancers17203391","title":"The Effectiveness of ¡Salud!, por la Vida, an Educational Intervention to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening in Puerto Rico","abstract":"Background/Objectives: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the leading cancer-related death in Puerto Rico (PR). Yet CRC screening (CRCS) rates remain low. We developed ¡Salud!, por la Vida, an educational intervention aiming to increase CRCS among age-eligible adults living in PR. Methods: We conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial among adults 50–75 years old at Federally Qualified Health Clinics in PR. Participants could not have a history of CRC nor be currently adherent to CRCS guidelines for a fecal occult blood test (FOBT) or fecal immunochemical test (FIT) (within last year) or colonoscopy (within last 5–10 years). Out of 445 randomized participants, 355 completed the study procedures (Control: 277; Intervention: 78) and were included in the main analysis. Participants in the intervention arm completed baseline and follow-up questionnaires alongside the educational intervention (at baseline) and two reminder calls (before follow-up) within a four-month period. Control arm participants only completed baseline and follow-up questionnaires within the same period. All participants were followed up to assess CRCS completion. Results: Post-trial screening rates were significantly higher in the intervention group: FOBT/FIT (55% vs. 39%, p = 0.02), colonoscopy (10% vs. 3%, p = 0.02), and any CRCS (60% vs. 41%, p < 0.01). Compared to controls, those in the intervention group showed a 48% higher probability of undergoing any CRCS (RR = 1.48, 95%CI: 1.17, 1.86), were 1.4 times more likely to complete a FOBT/FIT (RR = 1.40, 95%CI: 1.09, 1.80), and were over 3 times more likely to undergo a colonoscopy (RR = 3.16, 95%CI: 1.26, 7.91). Conclusions: The findings underscore the efficacy of the intervention in increasing CRCS uptake, potentially preventing late-stage detection and reducing CRC mortality in PR.","journal":"Cancers","year":2025,"id":578692,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9522,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":428316,"name":"María E. Fernández","orcid":"0000-0002-4820-821X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":910060,"name":"Ileska M. Valencia-Torres","orcid":"0000-0002-5873-3026","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1488619,"name":"Francisco J. Muñoz‐Torres","orcid":"0000-0003-2359-801X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":444111,"name":"Marievelisse Soto‐Salgado","orcid":"0000-0003-2909-2773","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1434384,"name":"Yara Sánchez-Cabrera","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":463913,"name":"Vivian Colón‐López","orcid":"0000-0002-0008-1539","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1317491,"name":"Josheili Y. Llavona-Ortiz","orcid":"0000-0002-1580-4832","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":39,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:58:24.957414Z","pmid":"41154446","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}