In 1963, The Health Insurance Plan (HIP) of Greater New York Study began. HIP was the first randomized controlled trial of periodic breast cancer screening with mammography.

The study included sixty thousand women aged forty to sixty-four. Half of the women received two annual breast examinations that involved mammography, a breast exam, and an interview. The rest of the women were not invited for annual examinations. After follow up, the researchers found that of the women who received the examinations, thirty percent fewer died from breast cancer than the women who did not receive any examinations.

The HIP trial was one of the first large-scale clinical trials to provide evidence that mammography screenings helped prevent breast cancer deaths in women.