Sharma, DeepakGoel, Naveen KrishanSharma, Munish KumarWalia, Dinesh KumarPuri, Sonia2020-01-022020-01-022019-06Sharma Deepak, Goel Naveen Krishan, Sharma Munish Kumar, Walia Dinesh Kumar, Puri Sonia. A community-based study on awareness of cancer and anticipated barriers in seeking help . Indian Journal of Community and Family Medicine. 2019 Jun; 5(1): 61-652395-21132666-3120http://imsear.searo.who.int/handle/123456789/191837Cancer is a leading public health problem worldwide. Contributing factors include lack of awareness regarding cancer and improper help seeking behavior. Objective: To assess the awareness regarding early warning signs of cancer, its risk factors and anticipated barriers in seeking help. Methodology: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 470 study participants. Trained workers administered a standardized tool to respondents after obtaining their informed consent. Epi Info software for windows version 7.2 was used for the analysis. Results: Overall, merely 7.7% (36/470) of the study respondents were aware of all the nine warning signs of cancer. The most commonly known early warning sign of cancer was “unexplained swelling” (58.3%). Further, although majority knew that cigarette smoking is a risk factor for cancer (90.4%), very few were aware about the role of inadequate physical activity (9.3%) and diet devoid of adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables (11.9%). There were few anticipated barriers in seeking help such as embarrassment (13.2%) and difficult to interact with a doctor (7.9%). Conclusion: There was inadequate awareness about cancer but a favorable help-seeking behavior. It is, therefore, recommended that health-care professionals should scale up efforts for disseminating information regarding cancer among the people.Cancerearly warning signrisk factorsJournal ArticleIndiaDepartment of Community Medicine, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India