Design and Pilot Implementation of a Chatbot to Support Breast Cancer Screening Among Black Women

Black women are more likely than White women to be diagnosed at later stages and to die from breast cancer. Increasing breast cancer screening rates could help improve early detection of and survival from breast cancer. To this end, this study seeks to implement and evaluate a culturally tailored chatbot intervention to increase breast cancer screening and address inequities among Black women using community-based research approaches.

We will conduct a pilot randomized quality improvement trial to test the efficacy of a chatbot outreach intervention, which provides breast cancer screening education and direct links to scheduling, on increasing breast cancer screening completion among Black women who receive primary care at the University of Washington (UW) Medicine. We hypothesize that compared to women who receive usual care, women who receive this novel chatbot outreach will have higher breast cancer screening completion rates at 90-days. In addition to quantitative assessment of chatbot effectiveness, we will also qualitatively evaluate chatbot acceptability, feasibility, and message relevance through interviews with a small group of participants about their experiences with the chatbot.