Cornell University, United States; DIW Berlin, Germany; IZA Bonn, Germany; RWI Essen, Germany.
Prev Med. 2018 May;110:16-23. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2018.01.020. Epub 2018 Feb 2.
This paper provides new evidence on biased perceptions about the risks of smoking. It studies predictors of lung cancer risk perceptions. Lung cancer is one of the deadliest and most aggressive cancer types with 5-year survival rates of only up to 15%. A cross-sectional online survey in Berlin assessed lung cancer risk perceptions among smokers (n = 664), never smokers (n = 703), and former smokers (n = 501) in 2013. In addition to lung cancer risk perceptions, the survey measured many respondent characteristics, such as intention to quit smoking and a self-assessment of the likelihood of success in quitting. The findings show that 80% of all respondents overestimated lung cancer survival rates and suggest significant room for public health campaigns to educate smokers and nonsmokers about the deadliness of lung cancer. Multivariate linear regressions show that smokers who do not plan to quit estimate the 5-Year Lung Cancer Survival Rate to be 11% (p = 0.044) higher than other smokers. A reduction in risk perception biases may induce some smokers to alter their quitting intentions and others to successfully quit.
本文提供了关于吸烟风险感知存在偏差的新证据。研究了肺癌风险感知的预测因素。肺癌是最致命和最具侵袭性的癌症之一，5 年生存率仅为 15%左右。2013 年，在柏林进行的一项横断面在线调查评估了吸烟者（n=664）、从不吸烟者（n=703）和前吸烟者（n=501）对肺癌风险的感知。除了肺癌风险感知外，该调查还测量了许多受访者的特征，如戒烟意向和对戒烟成功可能性的自我评估。研究结果表明，所有受访者中有 80%高估了肺癌的存活率，这表明公共卫生运动有很大的空间来教育吸烟者和不吸烟者了解肺癌的致命性。多元线性回归显示，不打算戒烟的吸烟者估计 5 年肺癌生存率比其他吸烟者高 11%（p=0.044）。减少风险感知偏差可能会促使一些吸烟者改变戒烟意愿，另一些人成功戒烟。
