{"doi":"10.31219/osf.io/t7j48","title":"Betel nut use and attitudes among guards at US Embassy Kolonia (Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia)","abstract":"AbstractObjectives: Betel nut chewing, with and without the addition of tobacco, is associated with an increased risk of oral cavity cancer. Betel nut chewing in Pohnpei (Federated States of Micronesia) has grown in popularity, and as expected, oral cavity cancer rates appear to be on the rise. Reasons for chewing and attitudes toward quitting were explored using a self-administered survey given to security guards at US Embassy Kolonia in January, 2020.Design: Guards were invited to complete a 10 question survey. The survey was developed for this situation. Each question addressed a different aspect of betel nut use, including frequency, reason for chewing, and desire to quit. Nine of the 10 questions were close-ended. All nineteen guards employed at the Embassy were invited to participate. Eighteen completed and returned the survey.Results: Ten, or 56%, of the eighteen guards reported chewing betel nut at least once in the last 3 months. Eight of the 10 reported chewing at least a couple of times a week, and 5 of the 10 reported adding tobacco most of the time they chewed. Nine of the 10 chewers reported that they wanted to quit chewing or reduce the amount they chew. The most frequently reported reason was fear of getting oral cavity cancer and disfigurement resulting from surgical treatment. Conclusion: Though this dataset is too small and its respondents too select to generalize results to all Pohnpei adult males, it provides, to the best of our knowledge, the first information on attitudes regarding betel nut chewing in that group. The results provide reason to be optimistic that cessation resources, if made available, would be of interest to the adult male Pohnpeian population.","journal":"OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints)","year":2022,"id":306172,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9603,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1000643,"name":"Pamela M. Marcus","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":5,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:32:48.984902Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}