Contributions of risk preference, time orientation and perceptions to breast cancer screening regularity

- Perceptions, time orientation and risk preference explain breast cancer screening.
- Uses incentive-compatible elicitation method to measure risk preference.
- Being more risk averse decreases the likelihood to screen regularly.
- Risk preference contributes more than socioeconomic factors to screening disparities.

Disparities in breast cancer screening are often explained by socioeconomic factors, although a growing body of papers show that risk preference, time orientation and perceptions may explain mammography use. The aim of this paper is to estimate the relative contribution of socioeconomic factors, risk preference, time orientation and perceptions to disparities in breast cancer screening regularity. These determinants are elicited in an experimental laboratory from 178 women aged between 50 and 75 years in France in 2013. The results reveal that risk aversion accounts for 30% of the variance in screening regularity, which is greater than that attributable to socioeconomic determinants (20%), perceptions (11.5%) or time orientation (2%). These results suggest that further investigation on the relationship between risk aversion and screening behaviors is needed to design more comprehensive public health interventions.