Methods for conducting systematic reviews of evidence on effectiveness and economic efficiency of interventions to increase screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers.

he Task Force on Community Preventive Ser­ vices (Task Force) chose to include prevention of breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer hrough interventions to increase screening as a topic n the Guide to Community Preventive Services (Commun uide) for several reasons. First, these cancers impose a arge health burden on the U.S. population; second, here are effective screening tests that can reduce this urden; and third, large segments of the population till are not screened for colorectal cancers and, despite uch progress, many groups have not benefited from he general rates of improvement in breast and cervical ancer screening. Through systematic review of the iterature, the Task Force sought evidence to determine ffectiveness of a variety of interventions which are eing applied to increase screening for these cancers. Community Guide methods for conducting systemati eviews and for linking evidence to recommendations ave been described elsewhere. In brief, for each ommunity Guide topic, an interdisciplinary team (the ystematic review development team), representing a ange of relevant backgrounds, skills, and experiences, onducts a review by: