Level of Cancer Awareness among Women of Low Socioeconomic Status in Mumbai Slums

Background: Cancer, a major cause of morbidity and mortality in India can be prevented by early detection through screening, for which, awareness is essential. Aim: Determining cancer awareness among low socioeconomic women in Mumbai. Settings and Design: Community based cancer screening study using a mobile van. Materials and methods: Data of consenting participants, collected using structured questionnaire, was differentiated into good and poor level of awareness using point based grading procedure. Results: Mean age of 182 participants, majority (90.5%) belonging to lower socioeconomic strata, was 43.0 +/- 8.8 years. Knowledge about cancer (84.6%) was good compared to knowledge of cancer screening (35.1%), awareness being higher among richer and more educated. Major sources of information were friends or relatives (46.1%) and media (35.2%). Only 6.6% had undergone prior screening. Conclusion: In spite of appreciable knowledge about cancer, creating awareness about screening, its availability, and motivating the general population for screening is necessary.