Background Health inequities lead to low rates of cancer screening in certain populations, such as low-income and ethnic minority groups. Different interventions to address this have been developed with mixed results. However, interventions are not always developed in collaboration with the people they target. The aim of our article is to present the viewpoint of patients, survivors, advocates, and lay persons on interventions to increase cancer screening from a health inequity perspective. Methods We prepared talking points to guide discussions between coauthors, who included representatives from nine patient and survivor advocacy groups, organizations working for citizen/patient empowerment, and health equity experts. Perspectives and opinions were first collected through video conferencing meetings and a first draft of the paper was prepared. All authors, read through, revised, and discussed the contents to reach an agreement on the final perspectives to be presented. Results Several themes were identified: it is important to not view screening as a discrete event; barriers underlying an individual’s access and willingness to undergo screening span across a continuum; individually tailored interventions are likely to be more effective than a one-size fits-all approach because they may better accommodate the person’s personal beliefs, knowledge, behaviors, and preferences; targeting people who are unknown to medical services and largely unreachable is a major challenge; including professional patient advocacy groups and relevant lay persons in the cocreation of interventions at all stages of design, implementation, and evaluation is essential along with relevant stakeholders (healthcare professionals, researchers, local government and community organizations etc). Conclusions Interventions to address cancer screening inequity currently do not adequately solve the issue, especially from the viewpoint of patients, survivors, and lay persons. Several core pathways should be focused on when designing and implementing interventions: advancing individually tailored interventions; digital tools and social media; peer-based approaches; empowerment; addressing policy and system barriers; better design of interventions; and collaboration, including the involvement of patients and patient advocacy organizations.

Background and objectives Significant health inequities exist in screening uptake for certain types of cancer. The review question was to identify and describe interactive, tailored digital, computer, and web-based interventions to reduce health inequity in cancer screening and review the effectiveness of such interventions in increasing screening rates versus usual care. MethodsWe searched four medical literature databases for randomized control trials (RCTs) published until 12 January 2023 that evaluated interventions aimed at increasing the percentage of breast, prostate, cervical, or colorectal cancer screening uptake. Meta-analysis was not conducted due to heterogeneity among studies. ResultsAfter screening 4200 titles and abstracts, 17 studies were included. Studies focused on colorectal (n = 10), breast (n = 4), cervical (n = 2), and prostate (n = 1) cancer screening. All were based in the USA except two. Most studies focused on ethnicity/race, while some included low-income populations. Intervention types were heterogeneous and used computer programs, apps, or web-based methods to provide tailored or interactive information to participants about screening risks and options. Some studies found positive effects for increasing cancer screening uptake in the intervention groups compared to usual care, but results were heterogeneous. ConclusionInterventions that use individual and cultural tailoring of cancer screening educational material should be further developed and investigated outside of the USA. Designing effective digital intervention strategies, with components that can be adapted to remote delivery may be an important strategy for reducing health inequities in cancer screening during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.