Journal of Education and Health Promotion

Evaluation of cancer awareness, cancer education, and prevention intervention techniques among university‑level students in the United States and India

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

. Adam D. Burke
. Jared W. Burns 1
. Swati Chakraborty 2
. Tanima Saha 3
. Amitabha Ray
. Daniel M. Borsch

1 School of Natural and Health Sciences, Seton Hill University, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, USA

2 Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Kanchrapara College, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, West Bengal, India

3 Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, West Bengal, India

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Cancer is one of the leading causes of death globally. A considerable number of
different cancer types may be preventable, using primary intervention techniques, such as health
education, cancer awareness, behaviors and lifestyle modifications. The present study conducted a
comparative assessment of cancer awareness among undergraduate students of the United States
and India.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Students from an Institution in India (KC) (55 females, 33 males),
and an Institution in the United States of America (SHU) (226 female, 58 male) during 2019–2020
participated in this study. Participants (n = 372) across all majors and all years (first through
fourth year) completed an online questionnaire and answered the questions on their demographic
characteristics (e.g., gender, age, and location), academic status (e.g., year of study, major),
multiple‑choice questions about cancer knowledge, and opinion questions (e.g., “where would you
find info,” “should therapies be free”). Student responses were collected using Qualtrics Survey
Software. Excel was used to analyze responses. We conducted statistical Χ2
 tests for independence
to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between the expected frequencies
and the observed frequencies in one or more categories of a contingency table, with a significance
of ɑ = 0.01. While small sizes due to the small institutions and the response pool, we note that we
achieved the necessary “n” for all tests reported.
RESULTS: Our research shows a few important statistically significant differences, including
knowledge of cancer and breast lumps is dependent on location, ranking of global cancer deaths is
dependent on location, and that cancer knowledge is dependent on the information source. All for
Χ2
 tests with P < 0.001.
CONCLUSIONS: Further encouragement of education for young people in various aspects of
cancer and cancer prevention, as well as information facility and sources of reliable data, could be
helpful for improving the overall health and primary prevention. A thorough assessment is needed
to understand the responsible factors for the observed cancer knowledge variations among students
of two different places.

Keywords

Cancer education
lifestyle modification
online survey
primary prevention
risk factors
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Journal of Education and Health Promotion
Volume 12, Issue 5
June 2022
Pages 1-7

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