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GENERAL COMMENTARY article

Front. Oncol., 30 April 2020
Sec. Gastrointestinal Cancers

Response: Commentary: Predictors of Colorectal Cancer Screening in Two Underserved U.S. Populations: A Parallel Analysis

  • 1Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States
  • 2Prevention and Health Promotion Administration, Maryland Department of Health, Baltimore, MD, United States
  • 3Center for Biostatistics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States
  • 4Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, International Epidemiology Field Station, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States
  • 5Division of Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
  • 6Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States
  • 7Division of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States

A Commentary on
Commentary: Predictors of Colorectal Cancer Screening in Two Underserved U.S. Populations: A Parallel Analysis

by Johnson, R., Bail, J. R., Behring, M., Orlandella, R., Williams, V., Halilova, K. I., et al. (2020). Front. Oncol. 10:240. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2020.00240

In responding to the commentary on our article by Johnson et al., we would like to thank the authors for their effort to highlight the need for additional research in this field. While we agree diet, health beliefs, and other risk factors are certainly important factors and potential contributors to colorectal cancer (CRC) screening adherence, our parallel analysis of two separate, existing cohorts (Ohio Appalachia and the Southern Community Cohort Study) was not designed to capture many of these factors. The data common to both cohorts were specific to the original scope of those studies and were limited to individual and neighborhood characteristics as well as geographic region. We also agree there is a possibility that biological differences in CRC severity may be exacerbated by race/ethnicity, education, obesity, lifestyle/behavior, and lead to increased mortality. We would like to note that our findings of lower CRC screening rates associated with lower area-level and individual socioeconomic status likely support this given the reciprocal relationship these factors have with one's environment. Finally, while our study examined predictors associated with screening adherence within hotspots (areas with higher CRC mortality rates) and we suggested that this information could be used to inform future interventions, a comprehensive study examining both hotspot and non-hotspot areas would be informative. Furthermore, novel investigations such as comparing gut microbiota as suggested by Johnson et al., are imperative in driving future research and key to creating a comprehensive strategy to reduce CRC mortality.

Author Contributions

SR: conceptualization and writing-original draft preparation. BB, AG, GY, RB, and WB: review and editing. EP: conceptualization, review and editing.

Funding

This article was funded by R01CA092447, U01CA202979 (SCCS); R24MD002785, P30CA016058, and Pelotonia (Ohio Appalachia).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Keywords: guideline colorectal cancer screening, underserved population, neighborhood deprivation, guideline screening, correlates of screening

Citation: Reisinger SA, Bernardo BM, Gross AL, Young G, Baltic R, Blot WJ and Paskett ED (2020) Response: Commentary: Predictors of Colorectal Cancer Screening in Two Underserved U.S. Populations: A Parallel Analysis. Front. Oncol. 10:686. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2020.00686

Received: 21 February 2020; Accepted: 14 April 2020;
Published: 30 April 2020.

Edited by:

Irit Ben-Aharon, Rambam Health Care Campus, Israel

Reviewed by:

Michael Jon Pishvaian, Georgetown University, United States

Copyright © 2020 Reisinger, Bernardo, Gross, Young, Baltic, Blot and Paskett. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Electra D. Paskett, electra.paskett@osumc.edu

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