These results suggest that even highly educated participants have difficulty with relatively simple numeracy questions, thus replicating in part earlier studies. The implication is that usual strategies for communicating numerical risk may be flawed. Methods and consequences of communicating health risk information tailored to a person's level of numeracy should be explored further.

The Health Information National Trends Survey data portray a tectonic shift in the ways in which patients consume health and medical information, with more patients looking for information online before talking with their physicians.

Little is known about access, sources, and trust of cancer-related information, or factors that facilitate or hinder communication on a population-wide basis. Through a careful developmental process involving extensive input from many individuals and organizations, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) to help fill this gap. This nationally representative telephone survey of 6,369 persons aged > or = 18 years among the general population was first conducted in 2002-2003, and will be repeated biennially depending on availability of funding. The purpose of creating a population survey to be repeated on a cyclical basis is to track trends in the public's rapidly changing use of new communication technologies while charting progress in meeting health communication goals in terms of the public's knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. The HINTS survey instrument was built upon extant models of health communication and behavior change, taking into account the rapidly changing communication environment. Questions in the survey were drawn from an overall theoretical framework that juxtaposed the"push" aspects of traditional broadcast media against the"pull" aspects of new media. HINTS data will be made widely available for researchers and practitioners; it will help further research in health communication and health promotion and provide useful information for programs, policies, and practices in a variety of settings.

No abstract

These data do not support overeating as a cause of weight gain among breast cancer patients who receive CT. The data suggest, however, that CT-induced weight gain is distinctive and indicative of sarcopenic obesity (weight gain in the presence of lean tissue loss or absence of lean tissue gain). The development of sarcopenic obesity with evidence of reduced physical activity supports the need for interventions focused on exercise, especially resistance training in the lower body, to prevent weight gain.

Evaluated the impact of receiving abnormal mammogram results on women's anxiety and breast cancer worries and on their breast self-examination (BSE) frequency and intentions to obtain subsequent mammograms. A telephone survey was conducted with 308 women 50 years old and older approximately 3 months following a screening mammogram. Subjects included women with suspicious abnormal mammograms, nonsuspicious abnormal mammograms, and normal mammograms. Women with suspicious abnormal mammograms exhibited significantly elevated levels of mammography-related anxiety and breast cancer worries that interfered with their moods and functioning, despite the fact that diagnostic work-ups had ruled out breast cancer. Women with moderate levels of impairment in mood or functioning were more likely to practice monthly BSE than women with either high or low levels of impairment. Breast cancer worries, perceived susceptibility to breast cancer, and physician encouragement to get mammograms all exhibited independent positive relationships to mammogram intentions.

Attention to the psychological aspects of breast cancer risk will be critical in the development of risk-counseling programs that incorporate testing for the recently cloned breast cancer susceptibility gene, BRCA1 (and BRCA2 when that gene has also been cloned).

Tailored health communication (THC) is any combination of information and behavior change strategies intended to reach one specific person based on information unique to that person, related to the outcome of interest, and derived from an individual assessment. THCs have been studied as a means to facilitate behavior change by influencing some key intermediate steps that precede the behavioral outcome. These include the extent to which people attend to communications, think about them, find them relevant and salient, and intend to take action. Evidence shows that THCs have achieved modest success in changing a number of cancer-related behaviors, including smoking, diet, exercise, and cancer screening. However, it is likely that THCs could be more effective if they were developed with a greater understanding of message effects and what we refer to as the behavioral pathway. Instead of using unidimensional approaches to influence behavior change, a message effects approach would help researchers identify key leverage points for impact on such intermediate outcomes as persuasion and yielding. Such a strategy also might be used to determine when THCs are the preferred approach and when generic, targeted, or combinations of THCs and targeted communications might be appropriate. Viewing THCs from the perspective of the behavioral pathway might indicate use of different messages, sources, and formats to influence different people at different points on the pathway. We provide a brief history of THCs and suggest how integrating a broader perspective of health behavior and health communication theories could enrich THCs.