Cargando…
Awareness of risk factors for cancer: a comparative study of Sweden and Denmark
BACKGROUND: Sweden and Denmark are neighbouring countries with similarities in culture, healthcare, and economics, yet notable differences in cancer statistics. A crucial component of primary prevention is high awareness of risk factors in the general public. We aimed to determine and compare awaren...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2015
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4655457/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26596679 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2512-9 |
_version_ | 1782402198263562240 |
---|---|
author | Lagerlund, Magdalena Hvidberg, Line Hajdarevic, Senada Fischer Pedersen, Anette Runesdotter, Sara Vedsted, Peter Tishelman, Carol |
author_facet | Lagerlund, Magdalena Hvidberg, Line Hajdarevic, Senada Fischer Pedersen, Anette Runesdotter, Sara Vedsted, Peter Tishelman, Carol |
author_sort | Lagerlund, Magdalena |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Sweden and Denmark are neighbouring countries with similarities in culture, healthcare, and economics, yet notable differences in cancer statistics. A crucial component of primary prevention is high awareness of risk factors in the general public. We aimed to determine and compare awareness of risk factors for cancer between a Danish and a Swedish population sample, and to examine whether there are differences in awareness across age groups. METHODS: Data derive from Module 2 of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership. Telephone interviews were conducted with 3000 adults in Denmark and 3070 in Sweden using the Awareness and Beliefs about Cancer measure. Data reported here relate to awareness of 13 prompted risk factors for cancer. Prevalence ratios with 95 % confidence intervals were calculated to examine associations between country, age, and awareness of risk factors. RESULTS: Over 90 % of respondents in both countries recognized smoking, use of sunbeds and ionizing radiation as risk factors for cancer. Lowest awareness (<50 %) was found for HPV-infection, low fruit and vegetable intake and alcohol intake. Swedish respondents reported higher awareness than Danish respondents for ten of the 13 risk factors studied. Respondents from Denmark reported higher awareness only regarding low fruit and vegetable intake and use of sunbeds. Low physical activity was the only risk factor for which there was no difference in awareness between the countries. A decline in awareness was generally seen with increasing age in both countries, but deviating patterns were seen for alcohol intake, red/processed meat, obesity and age 70+. CONCLUSIONS: This study supports findings from other European studies that generally demonstrate modest public awareness of many established cancer risk factors. Efforts should be made to improve awareness of the cancer risk factors HPV-infection, low fruit and vegetable intake and alcohol intake, which showed particularly low awareness in both countries. Previous studies indicate that repeated, broad campaigns are successful, and suggest that a multimedia approach is used. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4655457 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46554572015-11-24 Awareness of risk factors for cancer: a comparative study of Sweden and Denmark Lagerlund, Magdalena Hvidberg, Line Hajdarevic, Senada Fischer Pedersen, Anette Runesdotter, Sara Vedsted, Peter Tishelman, Carol BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Sweden and Denmark are neighbouring countries with similarities in culture, healthcare, and economics, yet notable differences in cancer statistics. A crucial component of primary prevention is high awareness of risk factors in the general public. We aimed to determine and compare awareness of risk factors for cancer between a Danish and a Swedish population sample, and to examine whether there are differences in awareness across age groups. METHODS: Data derive from Module 2 of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership. Telephone interviews were conducted with 3000 adults in Denmark and 3070 in Sweden using the Awareness and Beliefs about Cancer measure. Data reported here relate to awareness of 13 prompted risk factors for cancer. Prevalence ratios with 95 % confidence intervals were calculated to examine associations between country, age, and awareness of risk factors. RESULTS: Over 90 % of respondents in both countries recognized smoking, use of sunbeds and ionizing radiation as risk factors for cancer. Lowest awareness (<50 %) was found for HPV-infection, low fruit and vegetable intake and alcohol intake. Swedish respondents reported higher awareness than Danish respondents for ten of the 13 risk factors studied. Respondents from Denmark reported higher awareness only regarding low fruit and vegetable intake and use of sunbeds. Low physical activity was the only risk factor for which there was no difference in awareness between the countries. A decline in awareness was generally seen with increasing age in both countries, but deviating patterns were seen for alcohol intake, red/processed meat, obesity and age 70+. CONCLUSIONS: This study supports findings from other European studies that generally demonstrate modest public awareness of many established cancer risk factors. Efforts should be made to improve awareness of the cancer risk factors HPV-infection, low fruit and vegetable intake and alcohol intake, which showed particularly low awareness in both countries. Previous studies indicate that repeated, broad campaigns are successful, and suggest that a multimedia approach is used. BioMed Central 2015-11-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4655457/ /pubmed/26596679 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2512-9 Text en © Lagerlund et al. 2015 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Lagerlund, Magdalena Hvidberg, Line Hajdarevic, Senada Fischer Pedersen, Anette Runesdotter, Sara Vedsted, Peter Tishelman, Carol Awareness of risk factors for cancer: a comparative study of Sweden and Denmark |
title | Awareness of risk factors for cancer: a comparative study of Sweden and Denmark |
title_full | Awareness of risk factors for cancer: a comparative study of Sweden and Denmark |
title_fullStr | Awareness of risk factors for cancer: a comparative study of Sweden and Denmark |
title_full_unstemmed | Awareness of risk factors for cancer: a comparative study of Sweden and Denmark |
title_short | Awareness of risk factors for cancer: a comparative study of Sweden and Denmark |
title_sort | awareness of risk factors for cancer: a comparative study of sweden and denmark |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4655457/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26596679 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2512-9 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT lagerlundmagdalena awarenessofriskfactorsforcanceracomparativestudyofswedenanddenmark AT hvidbergline awarenessofriskfactorsforcanceracomparativestudyofswedenanddenmark AT hajdarevicsenada awarenessofriskfactorsforcanceracomparativestudyofswedenanddenmark AT fischerpedersenanette awarenessofriskfactorsforcanceracomparativestudyofswedenanddenmark AT runesdottersara awarenessofriskfactorsforcanceracomparativestudyofswedenanddenmark AT vedstedpeter awarenessofriskfactorsforcanceracomparativestudyofswedenanddenmark AT tishelmancarol awarenessofriskfactorsforcanceracomparativestudyofswedenanddenmark |