ABSTRACTS

Volume 12, Number 5
July-August 2007

Vol. 12, Number 5: Contents | Editorial | Abstracts

An Exploratory Study of Older Adults' Comprehension of Printed Cancer Information: Is Readability a Key Factor?
    Daniela B. Friedman a; Laurie Hoffman-Goetz b

a Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carlina, USA
b Department of Health Studies and Gerontology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Printed cancer information often is written at or beyond high school reading levels, despite lower average literacy abilities of the public. The objectives of this exploratory study were twofold: (1) to evaluate older adults' comprehension of breast (BC), prostate (PC), and colorectal (CC) cancer information; and (2) to determine if comprehension of BC, PC, and CC information varies according to text readability. Comprehension of printed cancer resources was evaluated with 44 community-dwelling older adults using the Cloze procedure and recall questions. Participants' comprehension scores were compared with Simple Measure of Gobbledegook (SMOG) readability scores (<grade 13 vs. grade 13+). Overall, older adults had satisfactory comprehension of cancer information as measured by Cloze (.86 ± .01) and recall (.71 ± .02). For CC information written at grade 13, however, a significant negative correlation between readability and Cloze comprehension was found (rs = -.44, SE = .17, p = .019), indicating poorer participant comprehension at higher readability levels. Comprehension of BC or PC information did not vary by readability level. Though readability plays a role in older adults' understanding of cancer information, cancer type and content are also important factors that influence comprehension. Use of plain language is recommended for CC resources.

Evaluating the Effects of a Youth Health Media Campaign
   Christopher E. Beaudoin a; Esther Thorson b

a Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
b School of Journalism, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri, USA

This article examines the impact of a socially oriented public health media campaign that aims to influence social indicators among adults as a means to advances in youth health outcomes. Hierarchical regression analyses are conducted on telephone survey data from 18 weekly telephone surveys of adults in Kansas. Media campaign exposure was positively associated with two outcome measures: beliefs about youth development and behaviors toward youth development. In addition, these two outcome measures increased significantly over time, with the dissemination of the campaign's television and newspaper advertisements. Furthermore, these over-time increases were present only among respondents who were exposed to the media campaign. These findings offer support for the campaign's influence on the two social indicators, which would, per other research, be expected to influence improvements in youth health. Findings are discussed in reference to previous research in the areas of public health and mass communication, with implications made for practitioners and researchers.

Does Entertainment-Education Work With Latinos in the United States? Identification and the Effects of a Telenovela Breast Cancer Storyline
    Holley A. Wilkin a; Thomas W. Valente b; Sheila Murphy c; Michael J. Cody c; Grace Huang d; Vicki Beck d

a Department of Communication, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
b Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
c Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
d Hollywood, Health & Society, Norman Lear Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

This article examines the proposition that a popular form of entertainment, the telenovela, can educate Spanish-speaking viewers in the United States if accurate health information is presented in a dramatic, narrative format. Health professionals consulted on a breast cancer storyline in a Spanish-language telenovela, Ladrón de Corazones, and the impact on viewers' knowledge and behavioral intentions were assessed using three methods. First, an analysis of call attempts to 1-800-4-CANCER demonstrated a significant increase in calls when a PSA featuring the number aired during the program. Second, a nationwide telephone survey indicated that viewers, especially those who identify with Spanish-language television characters, gained specific knowledge from viewing the story and that male viewers were significantly more likely to recommend that women have a mammogram. Third, these trends were confirmed and further explored using focus groups of Ladrón viewers. Implications for educating viewers using dramatic serials in the United States are discussed.

The Impact of the Cox-2 Inhibitor Issue on Perceptions of the Pharmaceutical Industry: Content Analysis and Communication Implications
    Ragnar E. Lofstedt a

a King's Centre for Risk Management, King's College London, London, England

The field of risk communication has its roots in the environmental, chemical, space, and nuclear arenas. As a number of these sectors have now vastly improved their communication strategies, attention is being placed on sectors that have been more problematic as of late. Examples of such sectors, include the food industries and the pharmaceutical/health sector. This article focuses on how large, multinational pharmaceutical companies can better communicate risks by analysis of one specific case, namely, that of the Cox-2 controversy.1 For purposes of this article, risk communication is best described as "the flow of information and risk evaluations back and forth between academic experts, regulatory practitioners, interest groups and the general public," and "big pharma" refers to the more traditional R & D-based, innovative pharmaceutical companies.

Narrative Intervention in Behavior and Public Health
    Joseph Petraglia a

a Global Health Communication, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Public health interventions using narratives, or stories, as a means for encouraging behavior change are common, especially in the developing world. Entertainment-education (EE) is perhaps the most widely researched form of such "narrative intervention," but many other kinds of interventions, or parts of interventions, rely on stories to convey information about behavior risk and to model risk avoidance. Although narrative interventions are often grounded in social-cognitive theory and in commonsense assumptions about the power of storytelling, they are generally undertaken without much regard for the philosophical and cognitive bases for narrative about which much has been written. Many aspects of narrative intervention in behavior and public health could be better understood in light this literature. These include the 1) challenges inherent in creating and building on a discourse around behavior change in non-Western contexts; 2) current emphasis in public health on production rather than reception and the fundamental problem of interpretation; 3) differences between messaging versus providing an alternative worldview, and finally; 4) issues surrounding the appropriate approach to the evaluation of a narrative intervention.

Book Reviews

A Review of: "Tones, K. & Green, G. (2004). Health Promotion: Planning and Strategies"
London: Sage Publications, 392 pp.
Kathryn Hambleton