Language Preference Associated with Disparities in Annual Lung Cancer Screening Adherence in an Integrated Healthcare System.

INTRODUCTION Lung cancer screening (LCS) with annual low-dose CT reduces mortality, but benefit depends on timely adherence to annual screening. Language barriers may introduce additional challenges to screening adherence. We examined the association between non-English language preference and annual adherence to LCS.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective cohort study of LCS-eligible adults who underwent initial screening between January 1, 2015, and March 10, 2025, within a four-hospital regional health system serving a diverse urban and rural population in Massachusetts. The primary outcome was receipt of timely follow-up screening within the recommended 10-15-month interval across up to three subsequent annual screenings. The primary exposure was preferred language (non-English vs. English). We employed generalized estimating equation models with logit link, adjusting for age, sex, comorbidities, neighborhood deprivation, and screening round. Patients with Lung-RADS 3 or 4 results, death, or who reached age 80 between screening rounds were censored.

Results

Among 7,218 patients (mean age 62.6 ± 5.8 years; 48.8% female), 92.9% preferred English and 7.1% non-English. Non-English speakers were more frequently Hispanic (77.7% vs. 4.5%) and had higher prevalence of comorbidities and neighborhood disadvantage. After the initial screen, 59.6% completed follow-up within 10-15 months and 21.1% had no follow-up. Overall, 26.5% of the cohort completed all three follow-up scans within the recommended interval. Non-English speakers were less likely to complete screening within the recommended interval at every screening round (T1: 51.4% vs. 60.2%; T2: 57.5% vs. 64.8%; T3: 52.5% vs. 60.6%) and more likely to have no follow-up at each interval. Non-English language preference was independently associated with lower odds of completing timely annual screens (adjusted OR 0.79; 95% CI 0.66-0.95), with findings consistent in sensitivity analyses using inverse probability of censoring weighting.

Conclusions

In this large community-based LCS cohort, non-English language preference was independently associated with 21% lower odds of timely annual screening adherence after adjustment for comorbidities and socioeconomic factors. Linguistically tailored outreach, patient education, and navigation support are critical to advancing equitable lung cancer screening.