Lung Cancer Screening Centralization Is Associated With Improved Screening Uptake: The Veterans Healthcare Administration's Experience 2015-2021
Centralizing lung cancer screening programs nearly doubled screening rates among veterans, revealing that delivery model powerfully influences who gets screened.
This nationwide VA study compared lung cancer screening uptake across 151,194 veterans by facility program type using difference-in-differences analysis, finding fully-centralized programs nearly doubled screening rates relative to decentralized individual provider-led approaches. Despite overall benefits, equity gaps persisted with Black veterans having the lowest completion rates, and model-specific advantages were found for rural versus disadvantaged populations.
What the study was
- Study design
- retrospective_longitudinal_cohort_difference_in_differences
- Category
- early_cancer_detection
- Maturity
- Potentially Practice-Changing
- Journal
- Chest
Why it surfaced
Large-scale natural experiment demonstrating centralization nearly doubles lung cancer screening uptake in the largest integrated health system; addresses the dominant implementation barrier to LDCT adoption; directly informs VHA and broader health system screening program design.
A plain-language summary of published research — not medical advice. Talk to a clinician about your own care.