title: Enhancing participation to health screening campaigns by group interactions.
abstract: Improving the prevention efficacy of health screening campaigns by increasing their attendance rate represents a challenge that calls for new strategies. This paper analyzes the response to a Pap test screening campaign of 155,000 women over the last decade. Using a mathematical model of statistical physics origins we derive a quantitative estimate of the mutual influence between participating groups. Different scenarios and possible actions are studied from the cost-benefit perspective. The performance of alternative strategies to improve participation are forecasted and compared. The results show that the standard strategies with incentives concentrated toward the low participating groups are outperformed by those toward pivotal groups with higher influence power. Our method provides a flexible tool useful to support policy maker decisions while complying with ethical regulations on privacy and confidentiality.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica e Scienza della Terra, Università di Parma and INFN, Gruppo collegato di Parma.
authors.forename: Raffaella
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Burioni
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Bologna.
authors.forename: Pierluigi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Contucci
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Bologna.
authors.forename: Micaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fedele
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche Informatiche e Matematiche, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia.
authors.forename: Cecilia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vernia
authors.affiliation: CNR, Istituto Nanoscienze S3, Modena.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vezzani
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D065006:Papanicolaou Test; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*