Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Cancer Awareness Measure (CAM) was developed in 2007-8 to address the absence of a validated measure of general public awareness of cancer (Stubbings, S., Robb, K., Waller, J., Ramirez, A., Austoker, J., Macleod, U., Hion, S., and Wardle, J. (2009) 'Development of a measurement tool to assess public awareness of cancer', British Journal of Cancer, 101(2), S13-S17.).The survey includes measures of awareness of signs and symptoms of cancer, cancer risk factors, age-related risk, screening programmes and potential barriers to seeing the GP. Since then, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has significantly revised and updated the survey, including a wider range of questions and collecting data online instead of face-to-face.
CAM data has been collected by CRUK approximately every two years from 2008 to 2019, moving to bi-annual in 2021. A COVID specific CAM was developed in 2020 and 2021 to measure the longitudinal impact of COVID-19 on cancer attitudes and behaviour and understand the contextual influences on cancer attitudes and behaviour during COVID-19. Further information about the CAM may be found on the Cancer Research UK Cancer Awareness Measure (CAM) webpage. The latest survey will be validated by CRUK in partnership with the Centre for Health Service Studies at The University of Kent in 2023.
Main Topics:The CAM questionnaire addressed the following topics:public awareness of cancer symptomspublic knowledge of cancer risk factorsreasons for patient delay before contacting doctorpublic knowledge of common cancer types in men and womenpublic awareness of cancer screening programmesdemographic variablesThe Special Licence version of the CAM dataset includes more detailed data on symptoms, risk factor and reasons for delay. Users should check the standard End User Licence (EUL) version of the study to see whether it meets their research needs before making an application for the Special Licence version.
Quota sample
Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (CAWI)
