Knowledge and Public Awareness of Cancer Risk Factors and Determinants among Yemeni adults- A Community Based Cross-Sectional Study

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdullah University, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Fez, B.P 1893, Route Sidi Harazem, Km 2.2, Fez, Morocco
² Department of Biology, Laboratory of Biology and Health, Faculty of Sciences, Ibn Tofail University, Kénitra, Morocco
³ Environmental Sciences and Biological Research Authority, Al-Hudaydah, Yemen
⁴ Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Aden University. Yemen

Abstract

Cancer is the second biggest cause of premature death after cardiovascular diseases. However, the majority of cancers are caused by risk factors that may be changed. Knowledge is frequently a component of the behavior modification process. Data on the target population’s level of knowledge is required. A cross-sectional survey about nine risk factors for cancer was conducted in four areas in Yemen. The data was analyzed using spss statistics (version20). Among the (571) subjects who took part in the research. The majority of respondents agreed that active smoking, alcohol consumptions are cancer risk factors and physical activity as a preventive factor for developing cancer. However, fewer respondents agreed that passive smoking, lack of fresh vegetables and fruits, sun overexposure, obesity, air pollution in cities and indoor smoke, physical inactivity are cancer risk factors. Participants’ responses were shown to have a strong relationship with their educational level, residency, and gender. The higher the educational level and whenever the gender was male and residency urban the higher the probability that respondents identified cancer risk factors including smoking and physical activity as a preventive factor (p<0.0005). The findings show that this community has little knowledge of prevalent cancer risk factors.