Heart Disease Risk Perception in College Men and Women

Abstract

The authors sought to assess the perception of risks for coronary heart disease (CHD) in college men and women. They surveyed 470 undergraduates from 2 major 4-year institutions who completed a questionnaire that measured perceived risks for heart disease. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents rated their risks as lower or much lower than those of their peers, indicating a clear optimistic bias. The research also revealed that the students who exercised regularly rated their risk of coronary disease lower than those who did not do so. In addition, women perceived a number of risk markers to be more potent or causative factors than men did. A significant number of participants did not comprehend commonly understood causal relationships associated with heart disease risk. The findings in this preliminary investigation suggest that college men and women do not accurately perceive their risks for developing heart disease.

Optimistic Bias in Physical Activity: When Exercise Flows into Addiction

“…More specifically, the optimistic bias about the risk of cancer or cardiovascular disease is very robust in people who adopt unsafe behaviors, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, and regular and intense physical activity. Our results are consistent with those arising from other studies such as the report done by Green (2003), according to which students who undertake regular physical activity showed a high level of optimistic bias about their risk of developing heart diseases (20). These results are also similar with the ones found in patients with some particular chronic disease (21)(22)(23).…”

Tracking Women’s Awareness of Heart Disease

“…The misperception about heart disease risk is particularly apparent at a young age. In a recent survey of 470 undergraduates at 2 universities, Green and colleagues 10 found that 68% of the respondents thought that their risk of heart disease was lower or much lower than that of their peers.…”

The Smoking Mind: A Psycho-Cognitive Perspective

“…GERKING and colleagues (54) noted that health risk concerns are modulated by beliefs about quitting ability: those who perceive themselves as being able to quit smoking easily also tend to underestimate health risks. This trend is strong in young smokers (aged [14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Concomitantly, according to classic decision-making theory, individuals have difficulties in assessing the future impact and gains of the present actions in an objective manner.…”

“…The OB was found to be independent of culture, gender and age (18). GREEN and colleagues (19) reported that undergraduate students underestimated their risks of cardiovascular heart disease (CHD The OB is also connected with other behaviors, such as alcohol consumption, diet, and unsafe sexual behaviors. For instance, college students believe that they themselves have a reduced probability of experiencing the proximal consequences of alcohol abuse (e.g., hangover) compared to other students under equivalent conditions (23).…”

“…People believe that they follow a healthier diet than others (24) and estimate that they are less likely to contract sexuallytransmitted diseases (18,25). For this reason, effective prevention campaigns are often focused on awareness (19). Regarding social problems, e.g., crime and violence, surveys such as that conducted by CHAPIN and colleagues (26) in a sample of 158 students have shown that individuals think they are less likely than their peers to become the victim of a crime.…”