Centre for Public Health and UKCRC Centre of Excellence for Public Health, Queen's, University Belfast, Belfast, UK.
Centre for Population Health (CePH), Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
BMC Cancer. 2018 Sep 10;18(1):881. doi: 10.1186/s12885-018-4769-8.
Breast and colorectal cancer are the two most common cancers in Malaysia. Low awareness coupled with stigma and erroneous beliefs delay help-seeking behaviours, lead to late presentation and contribute to poor detection rates. Promoting cancer awareness through mass media may be effective in improving cancer-related knowledge and uptake in screening tests. However, research is sparse regarding the cultural translation and implementation of mass media campaigns in Malaysia (and Asia) in terms of raising awareness about colorectal and breast cancer.
A collaborative partnership comprising researchers from Malaysia and the UK as well as policy makers, public health experts and non-government organisations from Malaysia was formed to design, deliver and evaluate the Be Cancer Alert Campaign. Each awareness-raising campaign will run for five weeks (Colorectal Cancer in April 2018, followed by Breast Cancer in October 2018). Evaluation of the campaigns will take place in Gombak district (Colorectal Cancer) and Petaling district (Breast Cancer) respectively, in the form of a pre-post randomly selected household survey and collection of service utilisation data. Occupants who are aged 40-years and above and are able to answer questions independently will be selected from each household. A sample of 730 with 80% power will detect a change of 6.09% in knowledge that unexplained lump or swelling is a symptom of breast cancer or changes in bowel habits is a symptom of colorectal cancer.
Malaysia and most South-East Asian countries have a low middle-income economy, with limited resources for cancer control. Late-staged cancers impose a significant economic burden on patients, households, communities, employers, health systems and governments. Our proposed strategy for the implementation of the culturally sensitive mass media cancer awareness-raising campaign will serve as a blueprint for cancer prevention and control policy in South-East Asian countries where the burden of cancer is increasing and there are high cancer death rates.
乳腺癌和结直肠癌是马来西亚最常见的两种癌症。由于意识水平低，再加上耻辱感和错误观念的影响，导致寻求帮助的行为延迟，出现晚期表现，并导致检出率低。通过大众媒体宣传可以有效提高癌症相关知识，并促进筛查测试的采用。然而，在马来西亚（和亚洲），关于大众媒体宣传活动在提高对结直肠癌和乳腺癌的认识方面的文化翻译和实施的研究很少。
成立了一个由来自马来西亚和英国的研究人员以及马来西亚的政策制定者、公共卫生专家和非政府组织组成的合作伙伴关系，共同设计、实施和评估“Be Cancer Alert Campaign”。每个提高认识的活动将持续五周（2018 年 4 月进行结直肠癌宣传，2018 年 10 月进行乳腺癌宣传）。将在瓜拉冷岳区（结直肠癌）和八打灵区（乳腺癌）分别以预-后随机选择的家庭调查和服务利用数据收集的形式对活动进行评估。从每个家庭中选择 730 名年龄在 40 岁及以上、能够独立回答问题的居民作为参与者。在 80%的功效下，样本量为 730 人，可检测到知识方面的变化，即未解释的肿块或肿胀是乳腺癌的症状或改变排便习惯是结直肠癌的症状的比例变化 6.09%。
马来西亚和大多数东南亚国家属于中低收入经济体，癌症控制资源有限。晚期癌症给患者、家庭、社区、雇主、卫生系统和政府带来了巨大的经济负担。我们提出的实施具有文化敏感性的大众媒体提高认识活动的策略，将为癌症负担不断增加且癌症死亡率高的东南亚国家的癌症预防和控制政策提供蓝图。
