Abstract 1363: Associations between fatalistic beliefs, modesty concerns and breast cancer screening in the American Muslim community.
Authors: Padela Aasim I. , Murrar Sohad , Adviento Brigid , Curlin Farr , Olopade Olufunmilayo 
Published: August 2014

Background: Research on breast cancer screening among American Muslims is limited. The handful of studies conducted in the Muslim community, and research of South Asian and Arab Americans, a proportion of which are Muslim, consistently demonstrate rates of mammography screening markedly lower than the 81% Healthy 2020 target. Our prior work suggests that American Muslim health behaviors are strongly influenced by shared religious concepts such as the concern for modesty. We sought to assess mammography screening rates among a diverse sample of Muslims in Greater Chicago, and assess the relationships between religiosity, modesty concerns, fatalism and breast cancer screening in this group.

Methods: We used a community-engaged research design partnering with the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago to survey a diverse sample of Muslim women frequenting mosques and community sites. The survey incorporated several measures of fatalism adapted to the Muslim context, a measure of discrimination, several measures of Islamic Religiosity and a pilot measure of Islamic modesty concern.

Results: 254 women participated with 56 African Americans (24%), 70 Arab Americans (30%), and 84 South Asians (36%). 76% of participants had insurance, while 84% had access to a primary care physician and 78% reported high levels of modesty concern. 75% of the sample reported ever having a mammogram while 44% had a mammogram within the past 1-2 years. There was not a significant relationship between racial and ethnic status and mammography rates. On multivariate analysis adjusting for socioeconomic factors high ratings of religiosity were associated with increased odds of ever having a mammogram (OR=1.08, p&lt;.01) while measures of fatalism, discrimination and modesty concern were not. Similarly in adjusted models having a mammogram biennially was negatively associated with positive religious coping (OR=0.33, p&lt;.05), whereas measures of religiosity, fatalism, discrimination and modesty were not significantly associated. Increasing age, longer duration of US residency, higher levels of education, were positively associated with ever having mammograms as was PCP access with having a mammogram in the past two years.

Conclusions: Contrary to our hypotheses modesty concerns and fatalistic beliefs were not significantly associated with mammography rates. Yet, on one hand higher intrinsic religiosity was positively associated with ever having a mammogram while positive religious coping was negatively associated with getting a mammogram every two years. Shared religious concepts appear to influence breast cancer screening behaviors among American Muslims across race and ethnicity, and research teasing out how religiosity impacts decisions to pursue breast cancer screening is needed.

Citation Format: Aasim I. Padela, Sohad Murrar, Brigid Adviento, Farr Curlin, Olufunmilayo Olopade. Associations between fatalistic beliefs, modesty concerns and breast cancer screening in the American Muslim community. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1363. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-1363