Jewish Cultural and Religious factors and uptake of Population based BRCA testing across denominations: a cohort study.

To evaluate the association of Jewish cultural and religious identity and denominational affiliation with interest-in, intention-to undertake and uptake-of population-based BRCA (Breast Cancer Gene)-testing.
Cohort-study set within recruitment to GCaPPS-trial (ISRCTN73338115).
London Ashkenazi-Jewish(AJ) population.
AJ men and women, >18years.
Participants were self-referred, and attended recruitment clinics(clusters) for pre-test counselling. Subsequently consenting individuals underwent BRCA-testing. Participants self-identified to one Jewish denomination: Conservative/Liberal/Reform/Traditional/Orthodox/Unaffiliated. Validated scales measured Jewish Cultural-Identity (JI) and Jewish Religious-identity (JR). 4-item Likert-scales analysed initial ‘interest’ and ‘intention-to-test’ pre-counselling. Item-Response-Theory and graded-response-models, modelled responses to JI and JR scales. Ordered/multinomial logistic regression modelling evaluated association of JI-scale, JR-scale and Jewish Denominational affiliation on interest, intention and uptake-of BRCA-testing.
Interest, intention, uptake-of BRCA-testing RESULTS: 935 AJ women/men of mean-age=53.8 (S.D=15.02) years, received pre-test education and counselling through 256 recruitment clinic clusters (median cluster size=3). Denominational affiliations included Conservative/Masorti=91(10.2%); Liberal=82(9.2%), Reform=135(15.1%), Traditional=212(23.7%), Orthodox=239(26.7%); and Unaffiliated/Non-practising=135(15.1%). Overall BRCA-testing uptake was 88%. Pre-counselling 96% expressed interest and 60% intention-to test. JI and JR scores were highest for Orthodox, followed by Conservative/Masorti, Traditional, Reform, Liberal and Unaffiliated Jewish denominations. Regression modelling showed no significant association between overall Jewish Cultural or Religious Identity with either interest, intention or uptake-of BRCA-testing. Interest, intention and uptake of BRCA-testing was not significantly associated with denominational affiliation.
Jewish religious/cultural identity and denominational affiliation do not appear to influence interest, intention or uptake of population-based BRCA-testing. BRCA-testing was robust across all Jewish denominations.

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