ABSTRACTS

Volume 11, Number 3
April-May 2006

Vol. 11, Number 3: Contents | Editorial | Abstracts

Can Fear Arousal in Public Health Campaigns Contribute to the Decline of HIV Prevalence?
    Edward C. Green A1 and Kim Witte A2

A1 Harvard School of Public Health, Center for Population and Development Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
A2 Michigan State University, Department of Communication, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

Most American health professionals who work in HIV/AIDS do not support the use of fear arousal in AIDS preventive education, believing it to be counterproductive. Meanwhile, many Africans, whether laypersons, health professionals, or politicians, seem to believe there is a legitimate role for fear arousal in changing sexual behavior. This African view is the one more supported by the empirical evidence, which suggests that the use of fear arousal in public health campaigns often works in promoting behavior change, when combined with self-efficacy. The authors provide overviews of the prevailing American expert view, African national views, and the most recent findings on the use of fear arousal in behavior change campaigns. Their analysis suggests that American, post-sexual-revolution values and beliefs may underlie rejection of fear arousal strategies, whereas a pragmatic realism based on personal experience underlies Africans' acceptance of and use of the same strategies in AIDS prevention campaigns.

Just Inducing Fear of HIV/AIDS Is Not Just
   Mary O'Grady A1

A1 Johannesburg, South Africa

This article does not have an abstract.

Can Fear Arousal in Public Health Campaigns Contribute to the Decline of HIV Prevalence?
     Douglas Kirby A1

A1 ETR Associates, Scotts Valley, California

This article does not have an abstract.

The Controversy Over Fear Arousal in AIDS Prevention and Lessons from Uganda
    Daniel T. Halperin A1

A1 University of California, San Francisco, California, USA

This article does not have an abstract.

Sensation Seeking and Alcohol Use by College Students: Examining Multiple Pathways of Effects
    Itzhak Yanovitzky A1

A1 Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

This study tests the proposition that peer influence mediates the effect of sensation seeking, a personality trait, on alcohol use among college students. Cross-sectional data to test this proposition were collected from a representative sample of college students at a large public northeastern university (N = 427). Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that, as hypothesized, sensation seeking influenced personal alcohol use both directly and indirectly, through its impact on students' frequency of association with alcohol-using peers and the size of their drinking norm misperception. The findings suggest that interventions that seek to limit the frequency in which high sensation seekers associate with peers whose alcohol use is extreme or, alternatively, seek to facilitate social interactions of high sensation seekers with normative peers, may supplement efforts to influence sensation seekers' alcohol and other drug use through tailored mass media advertisements.

Mediators and Moderators of Magazine Advertisement Effects on Adolescent Cigarette Smoking
     Patricia A. Aloise-Young A1, Michael D. Slater A1, Courtney C. Cruickshank A1

A1 Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

The purpose of the present study is to examine the relation between magazine advertising for cigarettes and adolescent cigarette smoking. Participants (242 adolescents) reported their frequency of reading 46 magazines and their attention to cigarette ads. Recognition of cigarette ads, passive peer pressure (i.e., normative beliefs), and the smoker image also were assessed. Results indicate that exposure to cigarette advertising and recognition of ads augment the effect of passive peer pressure on smoking. In addition, a positive smoker image was associated with attention to advertising and mediated the relation between attention and smoking. It is suggested that the effect of magazine ads on adolescents should be considered in policymaking on cigarette advertising.

Impact of an Entertainment-Education Television Drama on Health Knowledge and Behavior in Bangladesh: An Application of Propensity Score Matching
     Mai P. Do A1 and D. Lawrence Kincaid A1

A1 Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Bloomberg School of Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Shabuj Chaya is a weekly television drama broadcast during a 13-week period in Bangladesh in 2000. It used an entertainment-education format to increase health knowledge and to promote visits to health clinic and modern contraceptive use. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how a relatively new statistical technique, propensity score matching in conjunction with structural equation modeling, can be used to obtain an unbiased estimate of changes in health outcomes that can be attributed to exposure to the drama. The analysis is conducted with data from an after-only, cross-sectional survey of 4,492 men and women from the intended audience. The results from propensity score matching approximate what would be expected from a randomized control group design.

Quality of Life: Questionnaires and Questions
     Annabelle Mooney A1

A1 English Language and Linguistics, Roehampton University, London, UK

Quality of life (QoL) is a phrase often used in health care settings at policy and administration levels, in clinical assessments of therapies, and in clinical management of individual cases. While QoL is a broad concept that covers such areas as social, environmental, economic, and health satisfaction, health-related quality of life (HRQL) is less wide ranging, including mental and physical health and their consequences. First, I question the singularity of HRQL, suggesting there are at least two distinct meanings of HRQL. Second, questionnaires designed to assess individual patients' HRQL allow a limited range of ways for patients to express their state of being. The Medical Outcomes Study Short Form (SF-36), which operationalises HRQL for a traditional clinical setting, is used to show in detail the restricted options that are available for patient respondents. The communications limitations of utility-based measures, designed as cost-effectiveness measures but often used as though they were HRQL instruments, are also discussed. For assessing the HRQL of individuals in a health setting, such questionnaires can provide only a starting point, which should be supplemented with good interaction and communication.

The Health Buck Stops Where? Thematic Framing of Health Discourse to Understand the Context for CVD Prevention
     Joan Wharf Higgins A1, P. J. Naylor A1, Tanya Berry A2, Brian O'Connor A3, David McLean A4

A1 School of Physical Education, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
A2 Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
A3 Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
A4 Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Centre for Active Living, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Using a constructed week methodology, we analyzed media summaries for the type of health discourse (health care delivery, disease-specific prevention, lifestyle risk factors, public/environmental health disease, social determinants of health) portrayed over a 5-year period as a means of describing the context within which health staff worked to prevent heart disease in one Canadian province. The results reveal that heart disease received very little media coverage, despite provincial health data revealing it to be the leading cause of mortality, morbidity, and health care costs. Coverage of the health care system dominated the media landscape over the 5-year period. The study findings also suggest that the health discourses in the media summaries were represented as primarily thematic, rather than as episodic narratives, relieving any one level of government as entirely responsible for the health of its constituents. Media advocacy strategies may be a means to redress the imbalance of health discourses presented by the media.

Book Review

A Review of: “Communicating Public Health Information Effectively: A Guide for Practitioners.”: Nelson, D., Brownson, R., Remington, P. and Parvanta, C. (Editors). (2002). Washington, DC: American Public Health Association.
Renée A. Botta