ABSTRACTS

Volume 9, Number 2
March-April 2004

Vol. 9, Number 2: Contents | Editorial | Abstracts

Assessment of Selected Patient Educational Materials of Various Chain Pharmacies
    OTIS KIRKSEY A1, KIMBERLY HARPER A1, STEPHANIE THOMPSON A1, MONICA PRINGLE A1

A1 Florida A&M University, College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Institute of Public Health, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

Pharmacy literature commonly used to inform patients about medication side-effects and complications was examined for readability. Forty-five (45) informational sheets were obtained from nine national and regional pharmacies. According to the McLaughlin's SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledegook) formula, the reading level of the informational sheets ranged from grade 8-14 (8 = 8th grade level and 14 = collegiate level), with a mean reading level of 12. The sampled pharmacy educational materials may be too difficult for most Americans to read and comprehend. The pharmacist may assist in increasing patient compliance by offering education in a form that is understandable, which increases the likelihood of adherence to desired health behaviors.

Media and Community Campaign Effects on Adult Tobacco Use in Texas
     ALFRED McALISTER A1, THEODORE C. MORRISON A1, SHAOHUA HU A1,
     ANGELA F. MESHACK A1, AMELIE RAMIREZ A2, KIPLING GALLION A2,
     VANCE RABIUS A3, PHILIP HUANG A4

A1 University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston, Texas
A2 Baylor College of Medicine, San Antonio, Texas
A3 American Cancer Society, Austin, Texas
A4 Texas Department of Health, Austin, Texas

The present study reports on the effects on adult tobacco cessation of a comprehensive tobacco-use prevention and cessation program in the state of Texas. Differences in cessation rates across treatment conditions were measured by following a panel of 622 daily smokers, recruited from the original cross-sectional sample, from baseline to follow-up. The adult media campaign combined television, radio, newspaper and billboard advertisements featuring messages and outreach programs to help adults avoid or quit using tobacco products. The ads also promoted quitting assistance programs from the American Cancer Society Smokers' Quitline, a telephone counseling service. The cessation component of the intervention focused on increasing availability of and access to cessation counseling services and pharmacological therapy to reduce nicotine dependence. Both clinical and community-based cessation programs were offered. Treatment areas which combined cessation activities with high level media campaigns had a rate of smoking reduction that almost tripled rates in areas which received no services, and almost doubled rates in areas with media campaigns alone. Analyses of the dose of exposure to media messages about smoking cessation show greater exposure to television and radio messages in the areas where high level media was combined with community cessation activities than in the other areas. Results also show that exposure to media messages was related to processes of change in smoking cessation and that those processes were related to the quitting that was observed in the group receiving the most intensive campaigns.

A Content Analysis of Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the Print News Media
     ANNA E. DAVIDSON A1, LAWRENCE WALLACK A2

A1 Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
A2 School of Community Health, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA

This article does not have an abstract.

Leadership in a Public Housing Community
    MARIE WOLFF A1, STACI YOUNG A1, BARBRA BECK A1, CHERYL A. MAURANA A1,
    MARGARET MURPHY A2, JAMES HOLIFIELD A2, CHARLES AITCH A2

A1 Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
A2 S.E.T. Ministry, Inc., Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Community Health Advocate (CHA) programs train community members to assist and advocate for other members of the community regarding health and other community issues. These programs have been successful in improving the health and quality of life of communities. We developed a CHA program in a single public housing development. This program faced unique challenges since the advocates both worked and lived in the same setting. However, confronting and resolving these issues ultimately enhanced the quality of the program.

Tailored Computer-Based Cancer Risk Communication: Correcting Colorectal Cancer Risk Perception
     KAREN M. EMMONS A1, MEI WONG A2, ELAINE PULEO A3, NEIL WEINSTEIN A4,
     ROBERT FLETCHER A5, GRAHAM COLDITZ A6

A1 Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention, Harvard School of Public Health and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
A2 Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
A3 University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
A4 Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
A5 Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
A6 Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

We developed a computer-based tailored risk presentation and risk communication aid for colorectal cancer prevention. To evaluate the effectiveness of the tool, we randomized 353 participants to receive different risk presentation formats (relative plus absolute risk vs. absolute risk only vs. none) and different levels of engagement with the risk communication (active vs. passive). Findings suggest the tool to be useful for correcting misperceptions about personal risk. Of those with inaccurate risk perception at baseline, more than half of the participants in intervention groups had corrected risk perceptions at post-test, compared to only 12% in the control group.

A Culturally Competent Approach to Cancer News and Education in an Inner City Community: Focus Group Findings
     JONNIE P. MARKS A1, WORNIE REED A2, KAY COLBY A3, SAID A. IBRAHIM A4

A1 Public Health Productions, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio, USA
A2 The Urban Child Research Center, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
A3 PHTV, Inc.
A4 Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, VA Pittsburgh Health Care System, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Ethnic minorities who live in socioeconomically disenfranchised communities suffer disproportionately from many health problems including cancer. In an effort to reduce these disparities, many health-care practitioners and scholars have promoted "culturally competent" health education efforts. One component of culturally competent eudcation is a grounded knowledge base. To obtain knowledge about the cancer-related ideas of members of one African American community, researchers conducted focus groups with public housing residents and used the findings to develop a five-part television news series about breast, prostate, and cervix cancers. We found that participants gathered information from the folk, popular, and professional health sectors and constructed their cancer-related ideas from this information. Furthermore, experiences of racism, sexism, and classism colored their beliefs and behaviors regarding the prevention, detection, and treatment of common cancers. For this community "cancer" represents a giant screen upon which individual fears and societal ethnic, political, and economic tensions are projected.

Book Review

Combating AIDS: Communication strategies in action
Singhal, A.and Rogers, E.(2003).
Reviewed by Michael Slater, Colorado State University