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New York State Teachers and Breast Cancer: Understanding the Knowledge and Perceptions of a Population at Risk
BCERF Research Project

Background
Over 25 studies in the U.S. and internationally have documented the increased incidence of breast (and some other) cancers amongst teachers. Teachers represent just over four percent of the U.S. workforce, and almost 75 percent of teachers are female. In 2003, BCERF and Cornell University's Department of Communication, in collaboration the National Education Association (NEA), received a three-year grant from the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to research New York State teachers' knowledge and perceptions of breast cancer risk.

What is Risk Perception?
Why study teachers' knowledge and perceptions of breast cancer risk? It will still be many years until the risk factors for breast cancer for teachers, as well as for the general population, are better understood. Much of the information available to women, whether they actively seek it out or simply hear various fragments by chance, remains indeterminate. As health educators and scholars of science and risk communication, the study team is interested in how an at-risk population such as teachers deals with scientific uncertainty and possibly confusing health risk-related messages in an area so relevant to them.

The Study Now and Looking Forward
We designed a communications study that would help describe what teachers knew and felt about breast cancer risk, and the role of social networks and other external influences in processing those understandings and perceptions. We are analyzing and writing up results of the over 1,100 questionnaires returned to us. When this step is complete, BCERF can build an effective, research-based breast cancer risk communication campaign targeted at teachers.

Find Out More
The study is featured in the Winter 2006 edition of The Ribbon. For more information on the study, read the article.

Last Update 03.21.06