ArticlePloS one2026
Reliability of cancer screening questions from the National Health Interview Survey.
Article in PloS one, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), a nationwide in-person and telephone survey of the civilian non-institutionalized population, is used to measure progress towards Healthy People objectives on cancer screening. Survey reports have been compared to medical record data to assess validity of these questions; however, few studies have assessed reliability, or response consistency over time. We assessed the test-retest reliability of questions on cervical, colorectal, breast and lung cancer screening from the 2021 and 2022 NHIS.
methodsWe surveyed 1,770 adults ages 18 + years with and without prior screening for breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung cancer from four U.S. health systems (three in Washington state and one in Michigan) to examine validity of the NHIS questions. Among people who completed the validity survey, we randomized individuals to receive an additional survey one month later (N = 944) and three months later (N = 822). We calculated Cohen's Kappa, Gwet's AC1, and simple concordance to assess reliability.
resultsAmong our study sample, 535 (56.7% of those assigned) to one month follow-up and 537 (65.0%) assigned to three month follow-up completed the reliability survey. Among these, 36 (6.6%) and 94 (17.6%) of those assigned to one and three month follow-up respectively were excluded from reliability analyses because they had additional screening tests after completing the validity survey. Cohen's Kappa showed strong-to-moderate reliability for being up to date with mammography screening: 0.83 at one month and 0.78 at three months; reliability for other screening tests was considerably lower: 0.61 and 0.60 for cervical, 0.57 and 0.62 for colorectal, and 0.72 and 0.58 for lung and one and three months, respectively.
conclusionsWe found strong-to-moderate reliability of responses recalling breast cancer screening at one and three months following an initial survey. Reliability may not be a major threat to self-reported cancer screening behavior.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.