Public Perception of Cancer Survival Rankings

Abstract

Past research has observed that certain subgroups (e.g., individuals who are overweight/obese) have inaccurate estimates of survival rates for particular cancers (e.g., colon cancer). However, no study has examined whether the lay public can accurately rank cancer survival rates in comparison with one another (i.e., rank cancers from most deadly to least deadly). A sample of 400 Indiana adults aged 18 to 89 years (M = 33.88 years) completed a survey with questions regarding perceived cancer survival rates. Most cancers were ranked accurately; however, breast and stomach cancer survival rankings were highly distorted such that breast cancer was perceived to be significantly more deadly and stomach cancer significantly less deadly than reality. Younger participants also overestimated the survival rate for pancreatic cancer. These distortions mirror past content analytic work demonstrating that breast, stomach, and pancreatic cancers are misrepresented in the news.

Perceived Ambiguity, Fatalism, and Believing Cancer Is More Prevalent Than Heart Disease

“…Other work shows that people misunderstand the relative prevalence of different cancers, perhaps for similar reasons. 8 Although more work is needed to establish causality, these findings suggest the need to design cancer messages not only to be less ambiguous but to explicitly present health risks in the context of other health risks—consistent with the finding that people are often more responsive to comparative than absolute information. 9 Of course, such an approach would need to be tailored for subpopulations with higher cancer risk.…”

News Portrayal of Cancer: Content Analysis of Threat and Efficacy by Cancer Type and Comparison with Incidence and Mortality in Korea

“…How the news media cover cancer may bear significant implications for cancer prevention and control. Past studies suggest that the amount of news coverage of specific cancers does not correspond to the actual incidence or mortality rates ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 ) and that public perception of cancer risk is significantly related to distorted depictions in cancer news coverage ( 7 8 ). For example, Jenson and colleagues found that in comparison to cancer incidence rates in the United States, certain cancers (e.g., breast, lung, blood/Leukemia, pancreatic, and skin) were overreported in newspapers, whereas other cancers (e.g., male reproductive, female reproductive, kidney, and thyroid) were underreported ( 3 ).…”

Affective Science Perspectives on Cancer Control

“…Moreover, cancer risk and preventive recommendations involve exceptional uncertainty and ambiguity (e.g., Niederdeppe & Levy, 2007), which create highly affective psychological states (Bar-Anan, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2009; Han, Moser, & Klein, 2006). Media depictions of cancer further exemplify negative affect and uncertainty (Gottlieb 2001; Niederdeppe, Fowler, Goldstein, & Pribble, 2010), potentially contributing to inaccurate beliefs about risk and mortality that are disproportionally driven by affect (Jensen, Scherr, Brown, Jones, & Christy, 2013; Klein, Ferrer, Graff, Kaufman, & Han, 2014). Thus, cancer prevention and control science can derive particular benefit from research on fundamental affective processes.…”