Abstract
Population cancer awareness is of interest worldwide, as efforts are made to reduce cancer incidence via changes in risk and protective behaviours. To date, few studies have described changes in awareness over time, despite significant investment in raising awareness about various cancer types and risk behaviours. This paper describes the Cancer Awareness in Aotearoa New Zealand (CAANZ) survey, a cross-sectional telephone survey of adult New Zealanders conducted in 2014/2015 (CAANZ15, n = 1064) and its comparison with a similar 2001 study (CAANZ01, n = 438). Both aimed to describe current cancer awareness among a national sample of New Zealand (NZ) adults, with additional aims for CAANZ15 being to explore emerging issues in information provision and supportive care. Follow-up studies are challenged by changes in communication technologies and, in turn, potential issues in sampling. However, given the value of information about changing awareness, pragmatic steps were taken in CAANZ15 to maximise the response rate and comparability of the surveys. A response rate of 64 % was achieved for both samples. When compared to the adult NZ population, the CAANZ15 sample tended to be older, of higher socioeconomic status and under-representative of people with Pacific, Asian or, to a lesser extent, Māori (the indigenous population of NZ) ethnicity. To compensate for possible disproportionate age-by-ethnicity (Māori/non-Māori) groups in the sample, poststratification weighting was adopted. While caution will need to be exercised in drawing conclusions from comparisons made between these two cohorts, the dearth of such studies means that insights gained should be useful for guiding reflection on future cancer control directions and the generation of new hypotheses.