A community-based study on awareness of cancer and anticipated barriers in seeking help

Cancer is a leading public health problem worldwide. Contributing factors include lack of awareness regarding cancer and improper help seeking behavior. Objective: To assess the awareness regarding early warning signs of cancer, its risk factors and anticipated barriers in seeking help. Methodology: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 470 study participants. Trained workers administered a standardized tool to respondents after obtaining their informed consent. Epi Info software for windows version 7.2 was used for the analysis. Results: Overall, merely 7.7% (36/470) of the study respondents were aware of all the nine warning signs of cancer. The most commonly known early warning sign of cancer was “unexplained swelling” (58.3%). Further, although majority knew that cigarette smoking is a risk factor for cancer (90.4%), very few were aware about the role of inadequate physical activity (9.3%) and diet devoid of adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables (11.9%). There were few anticipated barriers in seeking help such as embarrassment (13.2%) and difficult to interact with a doctor (7.9%). Conclusion: There was inadequate awareness about cancer but a favorable help-seeking behavior. It is, therefore, recommended that health-care professionals should scale up efforts for disseminating information regarding cancer among the people.

Surveillance of communicable diseases in tertiary health care system in Chandigarh, UT.

BACKGROUND: Communicable disease surveillance is to have baseline data which will be helpful for planning and also for identifying epidemics under non-evident conditions. OBJECTIVE: To delineate the pattern of occurrence of communicable diseases so as to enable early identification, followed by appropriate and timely response to outbreaks. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Reports of listed communicable diseases from various departments and centers of Government Medical College, Chandigarh, involved in clinical care and laboratory diagnosis, were collected by the Department of Community Medicine on a weekly basis. Analysis of surveillance data was done for a period of 1 year--including reports from March 2005 to February 2006. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Percentage, normal test of proportions, time series analysis. RESULTS: Out of 19,378 cases of various communicable diseases, 11,575, i.e, more than half, were dealt with by health centers. Thus maximum cases of acute respiratory infections (ARIs) [8,278 (71.87%)] and acute diarrheal diseases (ADDs) [3,148 (54.4%)] were dealt with by health centers. Of 19,378 cases, 11,518 (59.44%) were of ARIs, 5,786 (29.86%) of ADDs and 550 (2.84%) of pulmonary tuberculosis. There was no significant difference in the incidence of either disease between two sexes. Most, i.e, 4,413 (38.31%), cases of ARIs and 512 (86.49%) cases of pneumonia were reported in winter; ADDs--2,607 (45.05%) in summer; and typhoid--94 (41.04%) in the monsoon season. CONCLUSION: Maximum workload of common communicable diseases was borne by health centers. The most common morbidity was ARIs, followed by ADDs and pulmonary tuberculosis. No significant gender predilection was seen. Overall reporting of communicable diseases observed in three different seasons was found to show a gradual increase from winter to summer through monsoon. Some specific seasonal trends were demonstrated by various morbidities.