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Survey of California men indicates lifestyle
and demographics play key roles in Prostate
Cancer Screening Awareness
Newswise — In the August 2008
issue of the Journal of Urology, Dr. Firas
Ahmed and associates from the Columbia
University Department of Medicine
investigated the correlation between certain
health risk behaviors and awareness of the
PSA test among men residing in California.
They hypothesized that men
reporting health risk behaviors would have
less awareness of the PSA test.
The study used the 2003 CHIS,
a population based, random digit-dialing
telephone survey conducted between August
2003 and February 2004.
It used a sampling approach
to randomly select telephone numbers from 41
geographic sampling strata representative of
the California population. Interviews were
performed in multiple languages and the
interview response rate was 60%.
Men with prostate cancer were
excluded, leaving a study population of
7,297 men.
PSA awareness was determined
from the question “Have you ever heard of
the PSA test?”
Study variables included
smoking status, walking, BMI, and binge
alcohol drinking. Personal confounding
variables included demographics,
socioeconomic status, access to health care,
health status and colon cancer screening.
Age, race and ethnicity were also recorded.
Almost half of the subjects
were between ages 50 and 60 years. Most were
white, married and spoke only English, were
up-to-date on colorectal screening and lived
most of their lives in the US.
Their reported health status
was good or better and incomes were at least
300% of the federal poverty level. Most had
health insurance and some college education.
The overall prevalence of PSA
awareness in the study population was 73%
and the prevalence of PSA testing was 39%.
PSA awareness increased with
age up to 70-years and then it decreased.
PSA awareness was highest in white men and
was positively associated with education,
income, health status and the number of
physician visits in the last year.
Statistical analysis
demonstrated that smoking, physical
inactivity and obesity were significantly
associated with lower odds of PSA awareness.
The prevalence of PSA
awareness decreased from 78% of men with no
risk behaviors to 71%, 68%, and 55% in men
with 1, 2, and 3 or more risk behaviors,
respectively.
Reported by UroToday.com
Contributing Editor Christopher P. Evans,
MD, FACS
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