“I Have Never Heard That One”: Young Girls' Knowledge and Perception of Cervical Cancer

Abstract

With the advent of a vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV), many are claiming that cervical cancer may become a health worry of the past. While the vaccine certainly represents an important step forward in the fight against HPV and cervical cancer, it does not diminish the importance of health education or screening interventions particularly amongst adolescents. This study explores the existing state of cancer and cervical cancer knowledge of Latina and African American adolescent girls from low-income, urban neighborhoods. We found that the study participants expressed a range of attitudes toward cancer. Knowledge of cancer also was varied and somewhat anecdotal, showing no unified body of knowledge, but instead representing an assemblage of information culled from formal and informal sources. Participants were most familiar with breast and lung cancer and mentioned these types of cancer most frequently in the focus groups. Most participants had never heard of cervical cancer, while a few were familiar with several aspects of the disease. Cancer knowledge seemed to be gleaned mostly from personal stories, perhaps suggesting the pervasiveness of cancer incidence in their community. The predominant attitudes expressed toward cancer included fear, uncertainty, and anxiety. Our findings suggest that considerable continued health promotion efforts are needed to improve knowledge about cancer in general, and particularly about cervical cancer, to reduce fear and to highlight the effectiveness of prevention and screening.

Rumors About Cancer: Content, Sources, Coping, Transmission, and Belief

“…This is common when formal sources of information are distrusted, as was the case in the former Soviet Union (Bauer & Gleicher, 1953). The few extant cancer rumor studies also suggest that people rely on informal and familial word-of-mouth channels when the medical community is distrusted (Gany et al, 2006;Mosavel & El-Shaarawi, 2007;Seale & Charteris-Black, 2008). Cancer knowledge is often shaped by narratives about personal experience of family members (Mosavel & El-Shaarawi, 2007).…”

“…Dread rumors typically outnumber wish rumors (DiFonzo & Bordia, 2007a), which may reflect stronger interest in bad, as opposed to good, news (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001). Focus group and interview studies of cancer beliefs find more statements about dreaded negative (e.g., death) than positive outcomes (Denberg et al, 2006;Denberg et al, 2005;Gany et al, 2006;Mosavel & El-Shaarawi, 2007).…”

“…Common themes reported in focus groups and interviews involve concerns about negative cancer outcomes (e.g., death, pain, reduced life quality), desires to avoid these outcomes (e.g., preventions, cures), and attempts to make sense of cancer (e.g., causes, conspiracy theories about profitmotivated withholding of cures). Beliefs include that cancer is associated with inevitable, slow, and painful death, physical unattractiveness, impotence (Denberg et al, 2006), and permanent diminution of quality of life (Denberg et al, 2005;Mosavel & El-Shaarawi, 2007). Perceived causes include genetics, environment, smoking and drinking lifestyles, contact with a person with cancer (Gany et al, 2006), opening the tumor to air (Matthews et al, 2002) and processed foods and diet (Marks, Reed, Colby, & Ibrahim, 2004).…”

“…A random digit dialing survey of U.S. adults found substantial endorsement of three of five specific misconceptions about cancer (Gansler et al, 2005;see Cummings et al, 2004). Women (Denberg, Wong, & Beattie, 2005), minority teenagers (Mosavel & El-Shaarawi, 2007) and ethnic immigrant minorities (Gany, Herrera, Avallone, & Changrani, 2006) reported inaccurate, distorted, and oversimplified ideas about cancer, potentially increasing cancer morbidity and mortality by contributing to poor treatment adherence (Gansler et al, 2005). Treatment preferences of newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients were '' .…”

Lo que no se ve, no existe: percepciones sobre cáncer y papilomavirus humano en jóvenes universitarios, Medellín, Colombia, 2014

“…La primera, de Mosavel y El-Shaarawi, estudió las percepciones y los conocimientos de mujeres latinas y afroamericanas de Norteamérica, entre 12 y 17 años, sobre el cáncer en general, incluido el cáncer de cuello uterino; encontraron una asociación del cáncer con la muerte, y que es mayor el conocimiento que tienen del cáncer de mama y de pulmón que del cáncer de cuello uterino, el cual no fue relacionado con el PVH (10).…”