Separating Fact From Fiction
Around the world, people continue to believe cancer myths
By Lisa Seachrist Chiu
CR | Page No. 14 | Winter 2009
W
hen it comes to cancer,
believing in myths can be deadly.
Yet a survey by the International
Union Against Cancer (UICC) shows
that people around the globe, in
countries rich and poor, continue
to believe myths about the causes
of cancer.
Some of the findings may say
more about human nature than
about cancer awareness. Among
the UICC’s findings was evidence
that people inflate the cancer risk
associated with environmental
factors while minimizing the
hazards associated with their
own behaviors. For example, the
survey demonstrated that people
worldwide misperceive air pollution
as a significant cancer risk, even
though it is not.
There is a “relatively consistent
bias” in people’s risk perceptions
across countries of different
income levels, says behavioral
scientist Melanie Wakefield,
the director of the Centre for
Behavioural Research in Cancer
at the Cancer Council Victoria,
in Melbourne, Australia, who
led the UICC technical advisory
group that designed the study.
“People consider exposures that
they cannot control, such as
air pollution, as more risky for
developing cancer than those that
they can control, such as being
overweight.”
The UICC undertook the
survey to increase the collection
and comparability of data on
international knowledge, attitudes
and behaviors related to cancer,
and to help cancer organizations
understand the data from their
geographical regions. The first
results from the survey, conducted
by the Roy Morgan Research Co.
and Gallup International affiliates,
were unveiled in August 2008 at
the UICC World Cancer Congress
in Geneva—a biennial meeting of
the global cancer community. The
preliminary data represent nearly
30,000 people in 29 countries
across the globe. Another 12
countries are finalizing their data
collection and analysis.
Many beliefs about cancer
risk are culture-specific. Only
14 percent of people living in
two low-income countries could
correctly identify that being
overweight is a cancer risk factor.
In high-income countries,
63 percent of respondents knew
that being overweight increases
cancer risk.
The survey also documented
a significant difference in
perceptions of the curability of
cancer among affluent, middle-income and low-income countries,
with 83 percent of people in
high-income countries believing
much could be done to cure
cancer, compared with 61 percent
in middle-income countries
and 52 percent in low-income
countries. Psychologist David
Hill, the president of the UICC
and the director of the Cancer
Council Victoria, attributes the
findings to the availability of care
in those countries and to a lack of
knowledge about what can now
be done to treat cancer under the
best conditions.
“An even stronger finding was
that people who engaged in a
risky behavior, such as smoking
or frequent alcohol drinking,
perceived there was less cancer
risk from that behavior than
