“las famosas picardías mexicanas…/ the famous Mexican mischievousness…”: Risk communication amongst Latino families affected by prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common noncutaneous cancer and second leading cause of death among men in the United States. Men with a first degree relative with prostate cancer are at increased risk. Men from minority backgrounds are especially at risk due to variability in access to preventative services, fragmentation of family systems, and stigma associated with prostate cancer. Including current prostate cancer patients and survivors as “knowledge brokers” within their families is an approach to prevent late stage prostate cancer diagnoses. Our research focused on the disclosure and screening decision making process for Mexican and Mexican-American men and their first degree relatives. We are developing descriptive models of prostate cancer screening, treatment, and diagnosis disclosure decision-making from the perspective of Latino men to form an evidence base for the development of culturally appropriate intervention strategies to facilitate informed and confident decision-making. We used in-depth, individual interviews and a grounded theory approach with 60 participants at baseline and 26 participants in follow up interviews. In our analysis we are exploring risk perception and the context, timing, and patterns of risk communication amongst primary relatives, especially male relatives. We will explain the analytic framework used to track disclosures to primary male relatives and subsequent actions (or non action) taken by the families over time. We will discuss how this descriptive work will inform an intervention model using a family-focused design.