IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v46y1998i7p907-918.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The social construction of the breast cancer epidemic

Author

Listed:
  • Lantz, Paula M.
  • Booth, Karen M.

Abstract

The age-adjusted incidence of breast cancer among U.S. women rose by over 30% during the 1980s. Several population-based studies have concluded that most or all of this observed increase is an artifact of the lead time afforded by mammography screening rather than an indication of a true increase in the rate at which women develop the disease. We conducted a study of the social construction of breast cancer trends as a public health problem in popular U.S. magazines. We documented trends in popular magazine article coverage of breast cancer between 1980 and 1995. In addition, we analyzed the content of a convenience sample of 228 popular magazine articles published between 1987 and 1995, focusing on a subsample of articles (n=91) that mention the increase in breast cancer incidence. Our results show that the increase in incidence is commonly portrayed as a mysterious, unexplained epidemic occurring primarily among young, professional women in their prime years. Many articles suggest that recent changes in women's behavior such as increases in delayed childbearing, nulliparity, the use of oral contraceptives, induced abortion, and the use of tobacco and alcohol are related to the recent upsurge in the disease. The portrayal of the breast cancer epidemic in the U.S. popular press reflects a strong social desire to create order and control over a frightening disease. In the process, a common message is that the behaviors and choices of young, nontraditional women--especially those related to fertility control--have led to pathological repercussions within their bodies, which in turn may be responsible for great disorder and pathology at the societal level in the epidemic of breast cancer.

Suggested Citation

  • Lantz, Paula M. & Booth, Karen M., 1998. "The social construction of the breast cancer epidemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 46(7), pages 907-918, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:46:y:1998:i:7:p:907-918
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(97)00218-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barker, Kristin K. & Galardi, Tasha R., 2011. "Dead by 50: Lay expertise and breast cancer screening," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(8), pages 1351-1358, April.
    2. Murray G Brown & Mark Asbridge & Vern Hicks & Sarah Kirby & Thomas J Murray & Pantelis Andreou & Dong Lin, 2014. "Estimating Typical Multiple Sclerosis Disability Progression Speed from Clinical Observations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(10), pages 1-10, October.
    3. Mayer, Brian, 2012. "‘Relax and take a deep breath’: Print media coverage of asthma and air pollution in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(5), pages 892-900.
    4. Radin, Patricia, 2006. ""To me, it's my life": Medical communication, trust, and activism in cyberspace," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 591-601, February.
    5. Gollust, Sarah E. & Lantz, Paula M., 2009. "Communicating population health: Print news media coverage of type 2 diabetes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1091-1098, October.
    6. Waggoner, Miranda R., 2013. "Parsing the peanut panic: The social life of a contested food allergy epidemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 49-55.
    7. Clarke, Juanne N. & Everest, Michelle M., 2006. "Cancer in the mass print media: Fear, uncertainty and the medical model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(10), pages 2591-2600, May.
    8. Barg, Frances K. & Grier, Sonya A., 2008. "Enhancing breast cancer communications: A cultural models approach," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 335-342.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:46:y:1998:i:7:p:907-918. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.