Table 3 Beliefs about cancer shared by Roma and Gypsy/Travellers
|  | •Cancer is an evil disease |
Roma | ‘It is a malicious sickness.’ P4-Roma, F53 |
Gypsy/Travellers | ‘It’s our big, black devil that nobody wants to mention.’ P12-Traveller, F60 |
|  | •Cancer is taboo |
Roma | ‘One does not even want to hear about that sickness, or … even want to be in contact with those people.’ P24-Roma, F29 |
Gypsy/Travellers | ‘It’s sort of viewed as taboo … people just don’t want to call it the cancer word.’ P8-Gypsy, M18 |
|  | •Fear of cancer |
Roma | ‘Everyone is the most afraid of cancer.’ P1-Roma, F28 |
Gypsy/Travellers | ‘Gypsies seem to think if you’ve got that, you are going to die.’ P7-Gypsy, F55 |
|  | •Cancer is latent in everyone |
Roma | ‘I think that all of us have it. And the one who does not protect himself and does not try to be healthy, in that case it will simply be confirmed.’ P26-Roma, M29 |
Gypsy/Travellers | ‘Every person has a cancer inside of them, it just needs to be awakened.’ P41-Showperson, F49 |
|  | •Screening is avoided |
Roma | ‘They should go regularly, but the people neglect it.’ P27-Roma, M58 |
Gypsy/Travellers | ‘They’re stubborn and they’re ignorant to it because the reason is they’re scared, they don’t want to know things...when... older people was … younger there was no such thing.’ P21-Gypsy, F49 |