As Breast Cancer Awareness Month gets under way in the United States, a new study shows that awareness about breast cancer is plentiful – and often wrong.

What’s really needed, concludes the National Breast Cancer Coalition, is education.

Indeed. As one example of misinformation revealed by the survey, people tend to believe family history is the main influence over who develops breast cancer and who doesn’t. Actually, while that’s a factor, it’s a somewhat minor one.

More accurate understanding of that and other breast cancer basics would make it more likely that people will take appropriate steps to curb their chances of getting the disease that claims 40,000 lives a year in this country. And, probably of more importance, they’d be more apt to detect it early enough to get proper treatment.

It’s not in anyone’s control, but if it were, doctors would probably advise two strategies for improving the odds: 1. Be a man. 2. Don’t age. Even if those flip recommendations were realistic, however, there is no foolproof prevention.

There are certain helpful precautions, some of them reasonably obvious. Exercise and a healthy diet are good. Hormone therapy, alcohol and obesity are bad.

Still, many people who apply that information will get breast cancer anyway – mostly women, although breast cancer does strike men. And the sooner it’s detected, the better off those patients will be.

Which means it’s vital that the National Breast Cancer Coalition, along with all the other advocacy organizations, zealously publicize reliable information that will help people recognize what they should be doing to recognize their vulnerability. For instance, women who don’t have children until their 30s – or at all – should know that they are at increased risk. Then they can decide how aggressively to be on the lookout.

Given the inevitability that the disease is going to strike some people, it’s probably most important to clarify how women especially can spot it early. Generally, it means a regimen that includes regular clinical evaluations, self-examination and annual mammograms starting at 40.

It is odd, given the emphasis the new survey places on education, that the National Breast Cancer Coalition is lukewarm, at best, about self-examination. The coalition notes that studies don’t prove it reduces breast cancer deaths. Furthermore, it commonly detects noncancerous growths that cause anxiety and sometimes lead to needless medical procedures.

It would be regrettable if women interpreted the coalition’s wariness as a reason not to perform self-exams. Survivors who were alerted to their own cancers that way might offer different advice.

As information about cancer grows, all women would be wise, in consultation with their physicians, to take advantage of the full battery of precautions, including self-exams. Anxiety over a condition that turns out to be benign may be unpleasant, but not as much as finding out about a cancer too late.