ETHNOS - breast cancer care research

BREAST CANCER CARE

Raising awareness of breast cancer

Breast cancer is the UK's most common cancer and its incidence is increasing. Rates of breast cancer increase with age. The rates of breast cancer are rising particularly quickly among South Asian women. Against this background, Breast Cancer Care asked ETHNOS:

to research South Asian women's knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about breast health, breast cancer, breast screening and breast cancer treatment
to assess the effectiveness of current resources in communicating information on breast health to South Asian women
to identify breast health education messages that are culturally relevant and appropriate
to determine the most appropriate means of communicating information about breast health to South Asian women

Through a series of focus groups which embedded methods to test resources, ETHNOS identified that while general health knowledge and practices were relatively good among most South Asian women, awareness and knowledge of the risk factors, symptoms and treatment of breast cancer were extremely limited, especially among older Pakistani and Bangladeshi women. Similarly, breast self-checks and the uptake of breast cancer screening were generally very low and decreased with age. The study identified a number of reasons for this, including: lack of knowledge of breast cancer, limited cultural focus on prevention, a view that doctors won't see patients for prevention, negative experiences of GPs, concerns over being examined by a male doctor, language barriers (and difficulty understanding NHS letters that encourage screening) and a fatalistic outlook. The study also found that many health promotion messages were not effective. They needed to be simplified and made more concrete and inclusive to reach their intended audience. The recommendations based on the research have been included in a wider corporate strategy to improve all Breast Cancer Care services for ethnic minority people.

ETHNOS - The UK's leading specialist in ethnic minority research