Abstract
Objectives
The aim of this study was to assess people’s perceptions of their personal risk, population prevalence and perceived severity in relation to three key health conditions (cancer, heart disease and hearing loss), gauge the size of any misperceptions, and identify correlates of such misperceptions.
Design
This study was a cross-sectional survey.
Study sample
A total of 10,401 adults representative of the UK population were participated in the study.
Results
Clear majorities of people incorrectly believe that they are at greater personal risk of cancer (>75%), that cancer is more prevalent in the population (>50%) and that cancer is more disabling (>65%), than either heart disease or hearing loss. In turn, people consistently regard their personal risk of hearing loss, the population prevalence of hearing loss and the severity of hearing loss as lower than either cancer or heart disease. Multiple regression analyses showed inconsistent patterns of relationships between people’s beliefs, sociodemographic characteristics and their health behaviours.
Conclusions
Accuracy in beliefs about cancer, heart disease and hearing loss is low, and the relationships between these beliefs, their potential antecedents and consequences are complex. Policy makers should ensure close adherence to evidence or risk-making decisions that are costly both in financial terms and in terms of suboptimal population subjective well-being.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Cath Wright and Kate Gosschalk for their help with approvals and data collection. Armitage was additionally supported by the NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre.
Ethical approval
Ethical approval was obtained from a University Research Ethics Committee (protocol no. 2019-5769-9246).
Informed consent
The participants gave informed consent at the beginning of the survey.
Consent for publication
No patient-identifying personal information was collected.
Author contributions
All authors contributed to the planning of the study. The analysis was conducted by CJA. The initial draft of the article was written by CJA and KJM. All authors revised the manuscript, and approved the final version for publication. CJA is the guarantor. CJA affirms that the manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study reported; no important aspects of the study have been omitted.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare no competing interests.
Data availability statement
Data and materials on reasonable request will be available 1 year following publication from CJA.