title: Perceived cancer risk and risk attributions among African-American residents of a low-income, predominantly African-American neighborhood.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  In some national surveys, African-Americans have had lower scores on perceived cancer risk items than whites. Our goals were to confirm low perceptions of cancer risk in an African-American community sample and explore participants' attributions for their perceived cancer risk.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data were from three cross-sectional surveys. We report levels of perceived absolute and comparative cancer risk in a community sample of African-Americans (N = 88), and African-Americans (Ns = 655, 428) and whites (Ns = 5262, 1679) from two nationally representative Health Information National Trends Surveys (HINTS). We analyzed the content of spontaneously-provided explanations for perceived risk from the community sample.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Perceived absolute and comparative cancer risk were lower in the community and national samples of African-Americans than in the national sample of whites. Participants' spontaneous attributions for low or lower than average risk included not having family history or behavioral risk factors, classes of attributions noted elsewhere in the literature. However, participants also explained that they wanted to avoid wishing cancer on themselves (positive affirmations) and hoped their risk was low (wishful thinking), responses rarely reported for majority-white samples.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results provide further evidence that cancer risk perceptions are lower among African-Americans than whites. Some participant explanations for low perceived risk (wishful thinking, affirmations) are inconsistent with behavioral scientists' assumptions about perceived risk questions. Results reveal a need to expand cancer risk attribution typologies to increase applicability to diverse populations, and may indicate that perceived cancer risk questions have lower validity in African-American populations.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Community Health and Health Behavior , University at Buffalo , Buffalo , NY , USA.
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Orom
authors.forename: Karen E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: O'Quin
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Reilly
authors.forename: Marc T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Kiviniemi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology*; D001290:Attitude; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D011203:Poverty; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012307:Risk Factors; D012938:Social Perception; D014481:United States; D044465:White People
keywords: African-American; cancer; race; risk attribution; risk perception