Abstract
The incidence of skin cancer among U.S. Hispanics increased 1.3 % annually from 1992 to 2008. However, little research has focused on skin cancer prevention among the rapidly growing Hispanic population. In this study, we examined theory-driven, psychosocial correlates of sun protection behaviors in a population-based sample of 787 Hispanic adults (49.6 % female, mean age = 41.0 years) residing in five southern or western U.S. states. Participants completed an English- or Spanish-language online survey in September 2011. The outcomes of focus were sunscreen use, shade seeking, and use of sun protective clothing. The correlates included suntan benefits, sun protection benefits and barriers, skin color preference, perceived natural skin protection, photo-aging concerns, perceived skin cancer risk, skin cancer worry, skin cancer fatalism, and sun protection descriptive norms. Results of multiple linear regression analyses revealed the following: sun protection barriers were negatively associated with each outcome; descriptive norms were positively associated with each outcome; perceived natural skin protection was inversely associated with sunscreen use; skin cancer worry was positively associated with shade seeking and use of sun protective clothing; skin cancer fatalism was negatively associated with shade seeking; and skin color preference was negatively associated with use of sun protective clothing. A number of additional statistically significant associations were identified in bivariate correlation analyses. This study informs the potential content of interventions to promote engagement in sun protection behaviors among U.S. Hispanics.
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Notes
There is a lack of consensus on usage of the terms Hispanic and Latino (Jaimes et al., 2013). For ease of presentation, we use the term Hispanic for the remainder of the paper.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Ciara Rivera for help with study logistics and translation of survey items, Knowledge Networks (GfK Custom Research) for assistance with data collection, and the GenoMEL investigators for sharing their questionnaires with us. This research was supported by the Epidemiology Shared Resource of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey (P30CA072720). This research was supported by a Cancer Prevention and Control Pilot Award from Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey (Coups) and by National Cancer Institute Grants K07CA133100 (Coups) and K01CA131500 (Hudson).
Conflict of interest
Elliot J. Coups, Jerod L. Stapleton, Sharon L. Manne, Shawna V. Hudson, Amanda Medina-Forrester, Stephen A. Rosenberg, Marsha Gordon, Kristina S. Tatum, June K. Robinson, Ana Natale-Pereira and James S. Goydos declare that they have no conflict of interest
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All procedures followed were in accordance with ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.
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Coups, E.J., Stapleton, J.L., Manne, S.L. et al. Psychosocial correlates of sun protection behaviors among U.S. Hispanic adults. J Behav Med 37, 1082–1090 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-014-9558-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-014-9558-5