Public Health ReportsPub Date : 2025-01-01Epub Date: 2024-08-27DOI: 10.1177/00333549241268644
Elise Caruso, John Parmer, Leeanna Allen, Allison Maiuri, Joan Mangan, Beth Bouwkamp, Nickolas DeLuca
{"title":"Process and Outcome Evaluation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's <i>Think. Test. Treat TB</i> Health Communications Campaign, United States, March-September 2022.","authors":"Elise Caruso, John Parmer, Leeanna Allen, Allison Maiuri, Joan Mangan, Beth Bouwkamp, Nickolas DeLuca","doi":"10.1177/00333549241268644","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00333549241268644","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>The <i>Think. Test. Treat TB</i> health communications campaign aims to increase the awareness of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) primarily among people born in the Philippines and Vietnam and other non-US-born groups (consumers) and the health care providers (providers) who serve them. We conducted a process evaluation to assess reach and audience engagement and an outcome evaluation to assess awareness, knowledge, perceptions, and behavioral intentions among audiences of the campaign.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>To evaluate the process, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measured exposure to (eg, with impressions [total advertisements]) and engagement with (eg, online clicks) the campaign during its rollout (March-September 2022). After the rollout, to evaluate outcomes, we administered online surveys to consumers and providers who were exposed and not exposed to the campaign.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The <i>Think. Test. Treat TB</i> campaign resulted in >33 million impressions, >2000 materials downloaded from the internet, and >33 000 materials shipped. Of 173 consumers who completed the evaluation survey, 123 (71.1%) were exposed to the campaign, with 108 (87.8%) reporting intention to ask their provider about tuberculosis (TB) during their next visit. Of 44 providers who completed the evaluation survey, 24 (54.5%) did not feel that they were the intended audience of the campaign, yet all felt the campaign materials were relevant to their patients, and 42 (95.5%) felt the materials were relevant to providers who serve patients at risk for TB.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The <i>Think. Test. Treat TB</i> campaign was successful in raising awareness of LTBI among the intended audiences. Continuing engagement with key audiences about LTBI to encourage testing and treatment is integral to eliminate TB in the United States.</p>","PeriodicalId":20793,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Reports","volume":" ","pages":"13-21"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11569662/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142073663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Public Health ReportsPub Date : 2025-01-01Epub Date: 2024-08-15DOI: 10.1177/00333549241267721
Jennifer E O'Brien, Lisa M Jones, Kimberly J Mitchell, Gina Zwerling Kahn
{"title":"COVID-19 and Child Sex Trafficking: Qualitative Insights on the Effect of the Pandemic on Victimization and Service Provision.","authors":"Jennifer E O'Brien, Lisa M Jones, Kimberly J Mitchell, Gina Zwerling Kahn","doi":"10.1177/00333549241267721","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00333549241267721","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Child sex trafficking (CST) is the involvement of minors in the commercial exchange of sex for goods, services, drugs, or money. The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected many risk factors associated with CST victimization and the availability of CST services. We examined service providers' perspectives on how the pandemic affected trajectories of CST victimization among young people in the United States.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We collected qualitative data from 80 law enforcement professionals and service providers working with young people affected by CST from 11 US cities. Semistructured interviews lasted approximately 1 hour and were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded via a grounded theory approach.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We found 3 overarching themes related to the pandemic's effect on CST victimization trajectories: grooming, perpetration, and service provision. Participants described how increased online activity may have increased the risk of CST, even among children without traditional risk factors. However, technology also facilitated young people's agency in seeking help and receiving services. In addition, participants reported increases in virtual service provision that facilitated access to, and availability of, CST services more generally.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Technology use among young people increased during the pandemic, leading to increases in the risks of experiencing technology-facilitated CST. Technology use among young people who experience CST victimization-and how it may differ from young people more generally-is underexplored and may provide insights into prevention and treatment. Collectively, results highlight the need for epidemiologic research to help identify how global and national events affect trajectories of victimization among young people.</p>","PeriodicalId":20793,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Reports","volume":" ","pages":"67S-73S"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11556450/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141988736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Public Health ReportsPub Date : 2025-01-01Epub Date: 2024-09-20DOI: 10.1177/00333549241279101
Sarah Treves-Kagan, Vi D Le, Liris S Berra, Colleen M Ray, Yanet Ruvalcaba, Leila Wood, Denise V D'Angelo, Tatiana M Vera, Lianne Fuino Estefan
{"title":"Trends in Contacts Made by Immigrants to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.","authors":"Sarah Treves-Kagan, Vi D Le, Liris S Berra, Colleen M Ray, Yanet Ruvalcaba, Leila Wood, Denise V D'Angelo, Tatiana M Vera, Lianne Fuino Estefan","doi":"10.1177/00333549241279101","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00333549241279101","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Immigrants in the United States are more likely than nonimmigrants to experience risk factors for intimate partner violence (IPV) and problems in getting support. The COVID-19 pandemic and recent incidents of xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment may have exacerbated exposure to IPV risk factors. We examined immigrant experiences of IPV before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This study identified changes in characteristics of abuse, services used, referrals, and barriers to services among those who contacted the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) and identified as immigrants, reported immigration status as a concern, needed immigration support, and/or identified immigration status as a barrier to accessing services (N = 49 817). We used joinpoint regressions to examine whether the rate of change differed significantly from 2016-2019 (before the pandemic) to 2019-2021 (during the pandemic).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The number of immigrant contacts to NDVH peaked in 2017 (n = 9333) and declined 25% to 6946 in 2021. During 2016-2019, the percentage of contacts reporting the following increased significantly: technology-facilitated violence (+12.7 percentage points), economic/financial abuse (+10.8 percentage points), and involvement of firearms (+4.8 percentage points); during 2019-2021, these trends reversed. The percentage of contacts reporting separation or divorce was relatively flat until 2019 and then increased from 14.6% in 2019 to 19.9% in 2021 (+5.2 percentage points). Housing instability increased during 2017-2020 (+9.3 percentage points), but requests for shelters decreased (-4.5 percentage points). Immigration status and personal finances were commonly reported barriers to services; both decreased during 2016-2019 but then increased during 2019-2021.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study can inform prevention and response strategies relevant for immigrants experiencing or reporting IPV.</p>","PeriodicalId":20793,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Reports","volume":" ","pages":"90S-99S"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11556452/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142293999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Public Health ReportsPub Date : 2025-01-01Epub Date: 2024-06-24DOI: 10.1177/00333549241258156
Alina L Flores, Robin D Bailey, Kevin Winfrey, Tonya Bess, Kaitlyn Modaff, Ronald Chapman, Jennifer Mitchell, Debra Houry
{"title":"Learn and Lead: Implementation of a Leadership Development Pilot Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.","authors":"Alina L Flores, Robin D Bailey, Kevin Winfrey, Tonya Bess, Kaitlyn Modaff, Ronald Chapman, Jennifer Mitchell, Debra Houry","doi":"10.1177/00333549241258156","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00333549241258156","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) needs leaders at all levels who can address technical and adaptive challenges in a changing public health landscape. We assessed the feasibility of implementing an enterprise-wide leadership development model.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In June 2023, we launched a pilot program, Learn and Lead, for nonsupervisory staff in early and mid-career levels. One hundred sixty-nine participants registered, and 149 completed at least 6 weeks of the 8-week program. We gathered quantitative and qualitative data through weekly electronic surveys and in-depth interviews. We calculated frequencies for closed-ended Likert-scale items and performed content analysis of open-ended items to assess most frequently mentioned themes. We based the pilot's design on CDC's leadership development framework to assess application of the framework and alignment of curriculum to the framework.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Three themes emerged: logistics and facilitation, leadership development curriculum, and making connections with self and others. Findings for logistics and facilitation highlighted preferences for course length, small breakout groups, mixed weeks, and value of staff support. Findings for the leadership development curriculum underscored the relevance of the US Office of Personnel Management's fundamental competencies to leadership development. Findings for making connections with self and others supported the cohort model and the importance of networking.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The pilot curriculum aligned well with the CDC leadership development framework. Feedback provided by pilot participants is being used to help shape CDC's ongoing leadership development efforts.</p>","PeriodicalId":20793,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Reports","volume":" ","pages":"108-114"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11569637/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141443198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Public Health ReportsPub Date : 2025-01-01Epub Date: 2024-07-27DOI: 10.1177/00333549241263526
Christian E Johnson, David R Holtgrave, Megan Catlin, Rahul Gupta
{"title":"Effects of States' Methods for Estimating Nonfatal Overdose, United States, 2021.","authors":"Christian E Johnson, David R Holtgrave, Megan Catlin, Rahul Gupta","doi":"10.1177/00333549241263526","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00333549241263526","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>Previous nonfatal overdose is a key risk factor for drug overdose death; however, current nonfatal overdose surveillance is limited to people who receive medical attention. We identified states that tracked nonfatal overdoses treated in prehospital and hospital care settings, assessed the effects of different surveillance methods on the magnitude of nonfatal overdose estimates, and estimated states' nonfatal-to-fatal overdose ratio.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Two analysts independently reviewed state websites to characterize states' methods of capturing nonfatal overdose events from December 2022 through February 2023. We collected information on surveillance methods in 5 states that met the inclusion criteria, including data source, measure specification, drug(s) involved, and whether states performed deduplication or published mutually exclusive measure specifications to capture unique events across care settings. We calculated nonfatal-to-fatal overdose ratios to assess the effects of different data sources on estimates of nonfatal overdoses.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Illinois, Maine, North Carolina, and West Virginia used syndromic surveillance data and New Jersey used hospital discharge data to track nonfatal overdose-related emergency department visits. Illinois and West Virginia tracked nonfatal overdose-related encounters with emergency medical services. Other states tracked opioid overdoses reversed following naloxone administration by emergency medical services, law enforcement, and community members. Maine, New Jersey, and West Virginia published nonfatal overdose information by using mutually exclusive measure specifications; the number of nonfatal overdoses per fatal overdose in these states ranged from approximately 5:1 to 14:1.</p><p><strong>Practice implications: </strong>Establishing a standard framework to combine data from existing national surveillance systems in prehospital and hospital care settings can improve nonfatal overdose estimates and enable comparisons between jurisdictions to help decision makers identify areas most in need of essential services.</p>","PeriodicalId":20793,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Reports","volume":" ","pages":"32-39"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11569654/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141788932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Public Health ReportsPub Date : 2025-01-01Epub Date: 2024-11-27DOI: 10.1177/00333549241300239
Bridget Diamond-Welch, Nadine Finigan-Carr, Michele R Decker, Katherine Y Chon
{"title":"COVID-19, Stay-at-Home Orders, and Interpersonal Violence: Findings and Implications for Emergency Response Efforts.","authors":"Bridget Diamond-Welch, Nadine Finigan-Carr, Michele R Decker, Katherine Y Chon","doi":"10.1177/00333549241300239","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00333549241300239","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":20793,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Reports","volume":" ","pages":"3S-8S"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11600418/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142732180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Public Health ReportsPub Date : 2025-01-01Epub Date: 2024-06-24DOI: 10.1177/00333549241256751
Megan A Kelly, Richard W Puddy, Sameer M Siddiqi, Christopher Nelson, Alexandra H Ntazinda, James E Kucik, Diane Hall, Christian T Murray, Andrada Tomoaia-Cotisel
{"title":"Distilling the Fundamentals of Evidence-Based Public Health Policy.","authors":"Megan A Kelly, Richard W Puddy, Sameer M Siddiqi, Christopher Nelson, Alexandra H Ntazinda, James E Kucik, Diane Hall, Christian T Murray, Andrada Tomoaia-Cotisel","doi":"10.1177/00333549241256751","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00333549241256751","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Public health policy interventions are associated with many important public health achievements. To provide public health practitioners and decision makers with practical approaches for examining and employing evidence-based public health (EBPH) policy interventions, we describe the characteristics and benefits that distinguish EBPH policy interventions from programmatic interventions. These characteristics include focusing on health at a population level, focusing on upstream drivers of health, and involving less individual action than programmatic interventions. The benefits of EBPH policy interventions include more sustained effects on health than many programs and an enhanced ability to address health inequities. Early childhood education and universal preschool provide a case example that illustrates the distinction between EBPH policy and programmatic interventions. This review serves as the foundation for 3 concepts that support the effective use of public health policy interventions: applying core component thinking to understand the population health effects of EBPH policy interventions; understanding the influence of existing policies, policy supports, and the context in which a particular policy is implemented on the effectiveness of that policy; and employing a systems thinking approach to identify leverage points where policy implementation can have a meaningful effect.</p>","PeriodicalId":20793,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Reports","volume":" ","pages":"40-47"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11569633/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141443276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Salience of Trust in Discussions and Recommendations of the United States' COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force.","authors":"Samantha Kloft, Daniel F López-Cevallos","doi":"10.1177/00333549241307499","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00333549241307499","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>The COVID-19 pandemic has further eroded trust in public health institutions across the United States. We examined the salience of trust in the federal government's discussions and recommendations of the US COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force (HETF).</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We conducted a thematic analysis of publicly available HETF documents, including the executive order, 8 meeting minutes, and 2 final deliverables. Given that trust operates at multiple levels of the socioecological continuum, we used an interpretive analytic approach to our inquiry.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We found that several barriers, facilitators, and influencers to trust were discussed during HETF meetings but few were mentioned consistently across all documents. Trust was most frequently mentioned by individuals in the public comments section of HETF meetings, more so than HETF members or representatives of federal agencies. Public commenters comprised 52% of total mentions of trust. However, these mentions did not make their way into the final HETF deliverables, signaling a potential disconnect between insights from public commenters and HETF representatives.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our findings indicate that trust had limited prominence in HETF discussions and recommendations. To rebuild the public's trust, it is imperative that the federal government, in collaboration with state and local partners, further develop actionable mechanisms to foster trust as a pillar of public health practice. By ensuring ethical principles are applied in decision-making and implementation, gaps in (mis)trust may be bridged, ultimately boosting the efficacy of public health emergency response.</p>","PeriodicalId":20793,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Reports","volume":" ","pages":"333549241307499"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11683789/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144064185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hannah Lee, Daniel Otero-Leon, Huiru Dong, Erin J Stringfellow, Mohammad S Jalali
{"title":"Uncovering Patterns in Overdose Deaths: An Analysis of Spike Identification in Fatal Drug Overdose Data in Massachusetts, 2017-2023.","authors":"Hannah Lee, Daniel Otero-Leon, Huiru Dong, Erin J Stringfellow, Mohammad S Jalali","doi":"10.1177/00333549241299613","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00333549241299613","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Yearly rolling aggregate trends or rates are commonly used to analyze trends in overdose deaths, but focusing on long-term trends can obscure short-term fluctuations (eg, daily spikes). We analyzed data on spikes in daily fatal overdoses and how various spike detection thresholds influence the identification of spikes.</p><p><strong>Materials and methods: </strong>We used a spike detection algorithm to identify spikes among 16 660 drug-related overdose deaths (from any drug) reported in Massachusetts' vital statistics from 2017 through 2023. We adjusted the parameters of the algorithm to define spikes in 3 distinct scenarios: deaths exceeding 2 adjusted moving SDs above the 7-, 30-, and 90-day adjusted moving average.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Our results confirmed the on-the-ground observation that there are days when many more people die of overdoses than would be expected based on fluctuations due to differences among people alone. We identified spikes on 5.8% to 20.6% of the days across the 3 scenarios, annually, constituting 11.1% to 31.6% of all overdose deaths. The absolute difference in percentage points of days identified as spikes varied from 5.2 to 11.5 between 7- and 30-day lags and from 0 to 4.6 between 30- and 90-day lags across years. When compared with the adjusted moving average across the 3 scenarios, in 2017 an average of 3.9 to 5.5 additional deaths occurred on spike days, while in 2023 the range was 3.7 to 6.0.</p><p><strong>Practice implications: </strong>A substantial percentage of deaths occurred annually on spike days, highlighting the need for effectively monitoring short-term overdose trends. Moreover, our study serves as a foundational analysis for future research into exogenous events that may contribute to spikes in overdose deaths, aiming to prevent future deaths.</p>","PeriodicalId":20793,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Reports","volume":" ","pages":"333549241299613"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11669124/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142882886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Self-Collection for HPV-Based Cervical Screening: Knowledge and Attitudes of Australian Health Care Workers in an Area With Low Screening Rates, July-November 2023.","authors":"Elvin Cheng, Joanne M Stubbs, Helen M Achat","doi":"10.1177/00333549241299272","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00333549241299272","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cervical screening is crucial for early detection of and ultimately eliminating cervical cancer. Conventional methods for cervical screening that rely on clinician collection of specimens encounter barriers, including embarrassment, discomfort, accessibility, and cultural concerns. Self-collection offers a promising solution to promote cervical screening among underscreened populations. Both methods are available to screen eligible patients since changes to the Australian screening program in 2022. We surveyed Australian health care workers at medical practices in an area with low screening rates on their views about self-collection from July through November 2023. Findings revealed gaps in knowledge about appropriate test use and test accuracy. In addition, findings showed a preference for clinician collection and perceptions that their patients lack confidence in self-collection and lack the willingness to learn about self-collection for cervical screening. Lack of up-to-date information on self-collection logistics and accuracy and pessimistic views on the ability of patients to perform self-collection can hinder the use of self-collection for cervical screening. Addressing these concerns through comprehensive education, easy-to-access guidelines, and interventions designed to support self-collection as part of routine practice is essential, especially for improved participation among under- or never-screened patients.</p>","PeriodicalId":20793,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Reports","volume":" ","pages":"333549241299272"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11638924/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142814018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}