Issue addressed: Population cancer screening rates are around 50% for the general population and even lower in rural areas. This study aimed to explore knowledge, attitudes, behaviours, motivators and barriers to breast, bowel and cervical screening participation in under-screened men and women. Methods:We used a qualitative research design. Focus groups were segmented by age, sex and screening participation. Participants were under-screened in at least one of the cancer screening programs, with separate groups for each of the programs.The discussion guides were designed around the Health Belief Model and group discussions were coded using a thematic content analysis approach.Results: Fourteen focus groups were held with 80 participants. Key themes were that the concept of cancer screening was not well understood, a low priority for preventive health behaviours, issues relating to local general practitioners (GP) and screening was unpleasant, embarrassing and/or inconvenient. A key determinant of participation in cancer screening was exposure to prompts to action, and it was evident that participants often required multiple prompts before they took action. Conclusions:Opportunities that develop attitudes to health that place disease prevention as a high priority; improve understanding of the benefit of screening in terms of early detection and treatment; improve GP availability and the patient-practitioner relationship; and the development of messages for each of the screening programs should be further explored as factors that may influence rural population screening rates.So what?: Addressing health attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, health practitioner and test-related barriers and improving messaging may increase cancer screening participation in under-screened rural populations.

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We used a retrospective cohort study to measure the impact of caring for children on female Australian researchers. Our aim was to see whether caring for children was associated with reduced outputs and collaboration. Women were randomly selected for inclusion if they published a first author paper in one of three Australian journals during 2007 to 2015, women who did not publish during this time were not included. One-hundred and sixty women were approached and 95 (59%) completed a survey on their history of caring for children. Two key outcomes were the women’s publication and citation counts, which were accessed from Scopus. We also examined the number of authors, affiliations and countries on their published papers, as a reduction in these numbers could indicate an impaired ability to collaborate. We examined the probability of being first or last author as a measure of esteem. There was a small increase in publication counts after the first child that was reversed after the second child. Average citations counts declined after children, particularly after the second child. There was some evidence of a reduced collaboration with overseas collaborators after the first child. The probability of being the last author increased after the second child. Three women were identified as statistically influential and all three had children and were in the top 10% of overall publications and citations. After removing these women the estimated changes in outcomes were noticeably different for most of the outcomes. The repeated presence of statistically influential women shows that it may be impossible to find an “average impact” of caring for children when considering research output. Adjustments may need to be made individually, with women explaining how caring for children has altered their career.

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Issue addressed: In Australia, cancer is the leading contributor to disease burden, with breast and bowel cancer among the most commonly diagnosed cancers. Despite the presence of community-wide health promotion activities and screening programs, people living in regional and rural locations experience a number of factors that reduce breast and bowel cancer survival outcomes. This study investigates the ways that high-risk community members in a regional area of Australia interact with health messaging about breast and bowel cancer screening.Methods: A qualitative research method was used to conduct 31 in-depth one-onone interviews with community members, leaders and essential service providers. A thematic approach was used to analyse data.Results: Findings provided insight to the ways that health is spoken about within the community, what prompts discussion of health, trustworthy sources of health information and the significance of peer-to-peer communication.Conclusions: Existing community communication lines can be used to assist in delivering public health messages among high-risk and vulnerable population groups.Utilising community ambassadors is identified as a health promotion method for hard-to-reach populations.So What?: Conversations about health and screening amongst community members, and led by community members, play a key role in shaping engagement with cancer screening programs and represent an important site for health promotion activities.These findings have implications for future public health initiatives amongst high-risk groups in regional locations.