Socioeconomic Disparities in Cancer Screening: Organized versus Opportunistic

which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. There are two types of cancer screening—organized and op-portunistic. In organized screening, invitations to screening are issued from the government or public sector. However, opportunistic screening depends on requests from individuals or their health advisor. 1) In Korea, both organized and op-portunistic cancer screening programs are widely available. In 1999, Korea launched the National Cancer Screening Program (NCSP), a nationally organized cancer screening program, which has been expanding to cover the whole population. 2) Since the introduction of NCSP, cancer screening rates in Ko-rea have increased steadily. 3) Although NCSP is managed and implemented with an evidence-based guideline and also monitors the quality of screening services in a regular basis, some Korean people show lower levels of trust and satisfaction for NCSP compared to opportunistic screening programs. 4) Because opportunistic screening is more expensive and less efficient, public awareness on benefits of NCSP should be improved to encourage to get screened through NCSP. It has been well known that there are socioeconomic disparities in cancer screening. 5) Lower household income, lower educational attainment, and lack of health insurance are well-established barriers to cancer screening. 6) Organized cancer screening is supposed to contribute to decrease of socioeconomic inequalities by removing economic barriers. It is not clear, however, whether organized screening is effective in reducing socioeconomic inequalities in cancer screening participation. Palencia et al. 7) investigated socioeconomic inequalities in breast and cervical cancer screening in European countries and the influence of the type of screening program on the extent of inequalities. They presented that socioeconomic inequalities in screening were found in countries with opportunistic screening, but not in countries with nationwide population-based cancer screening programs. In contrast, Decker et al. 8) showed that while colorectal cancer (CRC) screening in a city in Canada increased over time at all income levels after the introduction of an organized screening program , a disparity in screening by income still persisted. They emphasized that more targeted efforts are required to improve CRC screening for low-income individuals. In the present issue, Kim and Kang 9) investigated the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and cancer screening among Koreans using the data from the Fifth Korea Na-They found that the relationship between cancer screening rate and income level were different depending on the type of cancer screening. A higher income level …