Abstract B80: Willingness to participate in cancer screenings under four scenarios: Puerto-Rican Hispanics versus blacks versus whites

Objective: The purpose of this Cancer Screening Study analysis was to determine if there are differences in self-reported willingness to participate in cancer screenings between Puerto-Rican (PR) Hispanics, Blacks and Whites under four different scenarios.

Methods: The Cancer Screening Questionnaire, a 60 item questionnaire, was administered via random-digit dial telephone interviews to adults in three cities: New York City, NY; Baltimore, MD; and San Juan, PR. Respondents were asked ‘How likely are you to participate in a cancer screening if’ under four scenarios which differed on the following circumstances: 1) your own MD told you to get a cancer screening exam given you had symptoms; 2) routine annual cancer screening exam by own MD given you had no symptoms; 3) some community group offers a free cancer screening exam and you had symptoms; and , 4) some community group offers a free cancer screening exam and you have no symptoms.

Results: A total of 1,148 interviews were completed (27.1 % PR Hispanics, 30.9% Blacks, and 42.0%Whites). CASRO response rates for the three cities were 58%, 51% and 45% for San Juan, Baltimore and New York City, respectively, with an overall completion rate of 82.6%. Based on the % responding “Very Likely”, each racial/ethnic group ranked the 4 scenarios as 1^st:‘own MD, with symptoms’ (92–93%), 2^nd: ‘community event, with symptoms’ (47–71%), 3^rd: ‘own MD, no symptoms’ (44–50%), and 4^th:‘community event, no symptoms’ (23–45%) with PR Hispanics being the most willing under each scenario (p ≤ .000, using Rao-Scott ² for the weighted stratified analyses) for scenario's #2–4. For the three scenarios with overall statistical significance (scenarios #2–4 above, 7 of the 9 two-way contrasts by racial/ethnic groups were statistically significant (p ≤ .05) with a clear pattern revealing that Puerto Rican Hispanics and Blacks were very similar, and both were more willing than Whites to participate in cancer screenings. The largest impact on % “Very Likely” responses was observed for the specific circumstance of either ‘having or not having a symptom’: 37% vs 45% , 37 vs 48%, and 50% vs 52% reductions in Very Likely responses for the two scenarios, either community events or one's own MD (respectively), for PR Hispanics, Blacks and Whites, respectively. Parallel analyses revealed a lesser impact of 23% vs 11%, 28% vs 13%, and 49% vs 47% for the circumstance of ‘who’ was offering the cancer screening for PR Hispanics, Blacks and Whites, respectively.

Conclusions: While PR Hispanics, Blacks, and Whites each ranked the four scenarios in the same order, these findings provide strong evidence that circumstance specific differences exist between the three racial/ethnic groups, namely that: 1) within each scenario, Puerto-Rican Hispanics and Blacks were equally willing to participate in cancer screenings cancer, and both were more willing than Whites; 2) for all 3 racial/ethnic groups ‘having symptoms’ was the more critical factor, followed by ‘who’ was offering the cancer screening exam; and 3) both PR Hispanics and Blacks, as compared to Whites, showed a much larger differential between the impact of ‘symptom’, as compared to the impact of ‘who gives the cancer screening exam’, on their willingness to participate in cancer screenings.