In this study, we investigate the relationships among worries about environmental health risks, genetic and behavioural causal beliefs about cancer prevention, perceived cancer risk, and cancer fatalism based on the concepts of macrosocial worry and affect heuristic. Nationally representative data from the National Cancer Institute’s Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) 4 Cycle 2 dataset was employed. We conducted hierarchical multiple regression analyses by employing SPSS Macro for Probing Interactions in OLS and Logistic Regression. According to the results of this study, worry about environmental risks was positively and significantly associated with both genetic and behavioural causal beliefs. The more individuals worry about environmental risks, the less fatalistic beliefs they have. Behavioural causal beliefs negatively and significantly influenced cancer risk perceptions as well as cancer fatalism, moderating the associations between genetic causal beliefs, cancer risk perceptions, and cancer fatalism. Moreover, worry about environmental risks was found to be a mediator linking cancer causal beliefs and cancer fatalism. The results of moderation tests suggest socio-economic disparities exist in cancer and environmental risk perceptions as well as causal beliefs related to cancer.

在这项研究中，我们基于宏观社会忧虑和影响启发式的概念，调查了对环境健康风险的担忧，对癌症预防的遗传和行为因果信念，可感知的癌症风险以及癌症宿命论之间的关系。使用了来自美国国家癌症研究所健康信息国家趋势调查（HINTS）4周期2数据集的全国代表性数据。我们通过使用SPSS Macro来探测OLS和Logistic回归中的交互作用，进行了分层的多元回归分析。根据这项研究的结果，人们对环境风险的担忧与遗传和行为因果信念均存在正相关且显着相关。人们越担心环境风险，他们的宿命论信念就越少。行为因果信念对癌症风险观念以及癌症宿命论产生了负面影响，并极大地影响了遗传因果信念，癌症风险观念与癌症宿命论之间的联系。此外，人们发现对环境风险的担心是将癌症因果信念与癌症宿命论联系起来的媒介。适度测试的结果表明，在癌症和环境风险感知以及与癌症相关的因果信念方面存在社会经济差异。