ABSTRACT
African migrants to the West are at increased risk of hypertensive related diseases and certain cancers compared with other ethnic groups. Chronic diseases were sometimes described as contagious. Cancer was considered more common in Europe than Africa and attributed to chemical contamination from fertilisers, food preservatives and industrial pollution. Non-communicable chronic diseases are now the greatest cause of death in the world. This global epidemiological transition has been linked with adoption of less healthy diets, physical inactivity, tobacco use, urbanisation, increased life expectancy and poverty. Overarching explanatory models were bodily/dietary imbalance, stress/exertion, heredity/predisposition and chemical contamination. Explanatory models for perceived increased cancer rates in Europe were based on food contamination with toxins and this belief arose across age, gender and religious categories. Contamination by chemicals in food was a commonly reported explanation of cancer and used to account for its perceived increased incidence in western countries.
