%0 Journal Article %A Kerry A. Thomson %A Manuel Sandoval %A Carolyn Bain %A Francesca Holme %A Pooja Bansil %A Jacqueline Figueroa %A Silvia de Sanjosé %T Recall Efforts Successfully Increase Follow-Up for Cervical Cancer Screening Among Women With Human Papillomavirus in Honduras %D 2020 %R 10.9745/GHSP-D-19-00404 %J Global Health: Science and Practice %P 290-299 %V 8 %N 2 %X Key FindingsFor most women at high risk of cervical precancer, a reminder phone call on the importance of rescreening for cervical cancer was sufficient to prompt women to return to the clinic for rescreening 1 year later.Women who needed to be contacted 3 or more times were significantly less likely to return to the clinic, suggesting that there will be diminishing returns to protracted tracing efforts per woman.Key ImplicationsCervical cancer screening is only effective when women with positive screening results are linked to treatment. Programs need to invest effort in robust follow-up systems for women with abnormal results at any step of the cervical cancer screening and treatment cascade.Program planners should build in reminder and recall strategies as part of a successful cervical cancer screening program.Scaling up coverage of routine cervical screening in low-resource settings must be accompanied by efforts to retain women throughout the screening cascade and continuum of care, including adequate follow-up of abnormal results. The Scale-Up Project implemented human papillomavirus (HPV) testing for cervical cancer screening within public-sector health facilities in Honduras between 2015 and 2019. Women who were HPV-positive but did not have visually confirmed cervical lesions upon visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA-negative) were instructed to return to the health center after 1 year for repeat HPV testing. The current evaluation assessed the effectiveness of recall strategies to prompt women to return for retesting. Clinic staff placed reminder phone calls and followed up with short message service (SMS) or home visits, if needed. We summarized number of contacts, type of contacts, and time elapsed until return to the clinic, and used log-binomial regression to identify factors associated with return to the clinic. We identified 558 women who were initially HPV-positive VIA-negative from 8 clinics as needing repeat HPV testing 1 year later. Mean age was 43.2 years. Nearly all women (98.6%) were successfully contacted and 75.1% completed repeat HPV testing. The majority of contacts (65.4%) were phone calls, and nearly half of women who returned to the clinic (42.9%) did so after 1 contact. Mean days between contact and presentation at the clinic was 10.7 (standard deviation: 14.7). Women who required 3 or more contacts were 21% less likely to return for repeat HPV testing (prevalence ratio: 0.79; 95% confidence interval=0.69,0.90; P<.001) as compared to women who received only 1 contact. Reminder phone calls were highly successful at recalling women for HPV retesting in Honduras. This low-touch intervention should be included as part of standard follow-up to retain women throughout the continuum of cervical cancer screening and treatment. %U https://www.ghspjournal.org/content/ghsp/8/2/290.full.pdf