Closing the Screening Gap: How Digital Engagement and Behavioral Science Can Move the Needle at Community Health Centers

Community health centers serve nearly 1 in 11 Americans, yet health center cancer screening rates lag significantly behind national averages across cervical, breast, and colorectal screenings. This session reframed that gap not as a compliance problem, but as a behavior change challenge rooted in fear, cognitive bias, structural barriers, and systems friction. Drawing on current HRSA data, behavioral science, and emerging AI applications, presenter Clark Lagemann equipped health center leaders and quality improvement staff with an evidence-based, actionable framework for closing the screening gap—spanning behavioral science concepts, evidence-ranked interventions, practical AI applications, and a scalable Crawl-Walk-Run operational model.