title: In search of the cancer candidate: can lay epidemiology help?
abstract: First published in 1991, the ideas embedded in 'Lay epidemiology and the prevention paradox' offered a novel and rational explanation for the lay public's failure to fully engage with the lifestyle messages offered by health educators. During the course of a large ethnographic study in South Wales, Davison and colleagues described the emergence of what they termed the coronary candidate. Candidacy provides a 'cultural mechanism' that facilitates the estimation of risk for coronary heart disease. The model has rarely been applied to other major illnesses. This article presents findings from a study that sought to explore the lay epidemiology model, candidacy and cancer. In a series of in-depth individual interviews, members of the lay public discussed their ideas about cancer, and what emerged was an explanatory hierarchy to account for cancer events. Yet the random and unpredictable nature of cancer was emphasised as well as a general reluctance to accept the idea of cancer candidacy.
authors.affiliation: Academic Unit of General Practice and Primary Care, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. sara.macdonald@glasgow.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Macdonald
authors.forename: Graham
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Watt
authors.forename: Una
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Macleod
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D003625:Data Collection; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D011322:Primary Prevention / Q000379:methods; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012307:Risk Factors; D012648:Self Care; D018454:Spouses; D014852:Wales