Objective   To study the compliance to endoscopic screening and its influencing factors among high-risk population of upper gastrointestinal cancer (UGC) in urban Beijing and to provide evidence for developing appropriate health management strategies.

  Methods  With cluster sampling, we recruited 73 240 permanent residents aged 40 – 69 years from designated communities of Beijing Cancer Early Diagnosis and Treatment Project in six urban districts of Beijing and conducted a face-to-face questionnaire survey on demographic and UGC-related information among the residents from September 2016 to March 2020. The residents assessed as at high-risk of UGC were advised to have endoscopic screening in designated hospitals. The acceptance of the endoscopic screening and its influencing factors among the high-risk people were analyzed.

  Results  Valid responses were collected from all the participants and 23.0% (n = 16 862) of them were assessed as at high-risk of UGC. Of the high-risk participants, 11.9% (n = 2 004) received endoscopic screening. The results of unconditional multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the high-risk participants with following characteristics were more likely to have a high compliance to endoscopic screening: aged over 50 years, with the education of senior high/technical secondary school and above, suffering from psychic trauma or depression, with upper gastrointestinal disease history, with family history of cancer, having hot food preference in daily diet, and being exposed to a little or much kitchen fume when cooking at home; while the high-risk participants being current smoker and having regular physical exercise were more likely to have low compliance to endoscopic screening.

  Conclusion  Among high UGC risk population in urban Beijing, the overall compliance to endoscopic screening was poor and the compliance was influenced mainly by age, education, psychic trauma or depression, history of upper gastrointestinal diseases, family history of cancer, current smoking, regular physical activity, hot food preference in daily diet and kitchen fumes exposure at home.