Cancer Screening Rates Are Lower for Disabled Adults — Except for At-Home Stool Testing, Study Finds

Millions of adults in the United States with disabilities who are eligible for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening are getting tested at lower rates than people without such difficulties, according to a new study by researchers at the American Cancer Society (ACS), published in the journal Cancer.

Using data pooled from the 2021 and 2023 National Health Interview Survey, the researchers compared screening rates across six disability types — vision, hearing, mobility, cognition, communication and self-care — and found 6.02 million, 5.10 million and 11.17 million people with disabilities eligible for breast, cervical and colorectal screening respectively. People with self-care disabilities had the largest gaps: those with substantial difficulty had cervical, breast and colorectal cancer screening rates that were 37%, 31% and 15% lower than people with no self-care disability. Cervical screening, for instance, was 78% among women with no self-care disability, compared with just 37.2% among those with substantial difficulty.

Screening was also lower for people with vision (11-17% lower), mobility (11-12% lower) and cognition (7-9% lower) difficulties. Communication disabilities were linked only to cervical screening, which was 35% lower for women with substantial communication difficulty than for those with none.

Colorectal cancer screening showed the opposite pattern: stool testing was 24% higher among people with substantial mobility difficulties than among those without, suggesting accessible, at-home testing options can help close the gap that hospital-based screening leaves open. "The bright spot is at-home stool testing," said Dr. Priti Bandi of the ACS, the study's senior author. "It completely flipped the script on traditional disparities, clearing a potential path for making life-saving care accessible to everyone."

Bandi said the findings show that barriers stopping people with disabilities from getting screened need to be removed, and called for wider use of self-sampling tools. Lisa A. Lacasse, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said expanding access to accessible testing options such as at-home self-collection, along with coverage for follow-up tests and treatment, is critical to reducing cancer disparities.