Beliefs about the level of smoking, alcohol intake and body mass index required to increase cancer risk

Knowledge and beliefs about alcohol consumption, longer-term health risks, and the link with cancer in a sample of Australian adults

“…Our findings also suggest that recognition of cancer as a possible long-term consequence of alcohol is also an issue to address and add weight to existing evidence that understanding of cancer risk from alcohol consumption is poor. 18 It is possible that public knowledge of long-term harms of alcohol consumption may be confounded by some evidence suggesting beneficial effects of alcohol. 16 This is despite the fact that the clinical consensus is that people do not need to take up or maintain drinking for health benefits since alternative means of preventing heart and vascular disease are available.…”

The role of attitude and attitude ambivalence in acceptance of the cancer risk associated with red meat

“…Many people who engage in behaviours such as smoking and drinking that are linked with increased cancer risk accept the general fact that these behaviours can cause cancer, but are prone to optimistic bias when it comes to their own consumption (Weinstein, 1989;Raats & Sparks, 1995): Peretti-Watel et al (2007) found that only 36 per cent of smokers thought they were at high risk of developing cancer because of their smoking; and Miles, Redeker and Pouli (2010) found that 94 per cent of participants in their study who were aware that alcohol is carcinogenic thought they did not drink enough themselves to increase their risk. People have a tendency to dismiss evidence that doesn't accord with their attitudes (Lord, Ross & Lepper, 1979), or at least to be more sceptical about such information (Ditto, Scepansky, Munro, Apanovitch & Lockhart, 1998) -for example, people regard their own underlying beliefs as more important in making health-related decisions than the content of information they receive (Farrell, Murphy & Schneider, 2002).…”