Objective To develop a health management program for early upper gastrointestinal cancer high-risk population and evaluate its application effectiveness. Methods Taking the Information-Knowledge-Attitude-Practice (IKAP) theory as the intervention framework, a health management program was developed after literature analysis, a cross-sectional study, group discussions and a pilot study. A total of 66 early upper gastrointestinal cancer high-risk population from two communities (33 cases in each community) in Luoyang City were assigned to a control group and an intervention group using a lottery cluster randomization. The control group received routine health management for high-risk individuals of early upper gastrointestinal cancer in the community, while the intervention group additionally received the health management program for three months. Results Thirty-three participants in the intervention group and 32 participants in the control group completed the study. After the intervention, the intervention group scored significantly higher than the control group in terms of knowledge about upper gastrointestinal cancer, health-promoting lifestyle behaviors and preventive proactive behaviors (all P<0.05), and the experimental group had a significantly higher early cancer screening rate than the control group (P<0.05). Conclusion The health management program for high-risk population of early upper gastrointestinal cancer, based on the IKAP theory, can effectively improve disease-related knowledge among high-risk population, promote the adoption of healthy lifestyles, enhance proactive cancer prevention behaviors, and increase early-stage cancer screening rates.