Cancer Information-seeking in an Age of COVID-19: Findings from the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Information Service

Vanderpool, Robin C.; Huang, Grace; Mollica, Michelle; Gutierrez, Adrianna I.; Maynard, Candace Deaton

doi:10.1080/10410236.2020.1847449

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Our findings are consistent with the findings of a recent study by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that found, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, cancer survivors and caregivers were more likely to engage with NCI’s Cancer Information Services resources than tobacco users or the general public. This pattern was consistent for English- and Spanish-speaking users accessing content via telephone, instant messaging, email, and social media [ 41 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

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COVID-19 Communication From Seven Health Care Institutions in North Texas for English- and Spanish-Speaking Cancer Patients: Mixed Method Website Study

Higashi¹,

Sweetenham²,

Israel³

et al. 2021

JMIR Cancer

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Background The COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgent need to rapidly disseminate health information, especially to those with cancer, because they face higher morbidity and mortality rates. At the same time, the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on Latinx populations underscores the need for information to reach Spanish speakers. However, the equity of COVID-19 information communicated through institutions’ online media to Spanish-speaking cancer patients is unknown. Objective We conducted a multimodal, mixed method document review study to evaluate the equity of online information about COVID-19 and cancer available to English- and Spanish-speaking populations from seven health care institutions in North Texas, where one in five adults is Spanish-speaking. Our focus was less on the “digital divide,” which conveys disparities in access to computers and the internet based on the race/ethnicity, education, and income of at-risk populations; rather, our study asks the following question: to what extent is online content useful and culturally appropriate in meeting Spanish speakers’ information needs? Methods We reviewed 50 websites (33 English and 17 Spanish) over a period of 1 week in the middle of May 2020. We sampled seven institutions’ main oncology and COVID web pages, and both internal (institutional) and external (noninstitutional) linked content. We conducted several analyses for each sampled page, including (1) thematic content analysis, (2) literacy level analysis using Readability Studio software, (3) coding using the Patient Education and Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT), and (4) descriptive analysis of video and diversity content. Results The themes most frequently addressed on English and Spanish websites differed. While “resources/FAQs” were frequently cited themes on both websites, English websites more frequently addressed “news/updates” and “cancer+COVID,” and Spanish websites addressed “protection” and “COVID data.” Spanish websites had on average a lower literacy level (11th grade) than English websites (13th grade), although still far above the recommended guideline of 6th to 8th grade. The PEMAT’s overall average accessibility score was the same for English (n=33 pages) and Spanish pages (n=17 pages) at 82%. Among the Dallas-Fort Worth organizations, the average accessibility of Spanish pages (n=7) was slightly lower than that of English pages (n=19) (77% vs 81%), due mostly to the discrepancy in English-only videos and visual aids. Of the 50 websites, 12 (24%) had embedded videos; however, 100% of videos were in English, including one on a Spanish website. Conclusions We identified an uneven response among the seven health care institutions for providing equitable information to Spanish-speaking Dallas-Fort Worth residents concerned about COVID and cancer. Spanish speakers lack equal access in both diversity of content about COVID-19 and access to other websites, leaving an already vulnerable cancer patient population at greater risk. We recommend several specific actions to enhance content and navigability for Spanish speakers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…RenderX was consistent for English-and Spanish-speaking users accessing content via telephone, instant messaging, email, and social media [41].…”

Section: Xsl • Fomentioning

confidence: 84%

COVID-19 Communication From Seven Health Care Institutions in North Texas for English- and Spanish-Speaking Cancer Patients: Mixed Method Website Study

Higashi¹,

Sweetenham²,

Israel³

et al. 2021

JMIR Cancer

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show abstract

“…However, in the second phase, the media's agenda-setting capabilities did not function nearly as well when their agenda was of little relevance to the concerns of the public, neither addressing nor catering to the demand for cancer information among the population over the last five years. This was especially the case in 2020 when the gap widening was accelerating, and the causal linkages between the attention from both the public and media were substantially fractured, as cancer information-seeking was quite likely heightened when under the conditions of an epidemic [37,38].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverging from News Media: An Exploratory Study on the Changing Dynamics between Media and Public Attention on Cancer in China from 2011–2020

Huang

2021

IJERPH

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Over the past decade, China has witnessed fast-paced technological advancements in the media industry, as well as major shifts in the health agenda portrayed in the media. Therefore, a key starting point when discussing health communication lies in whether media attention and public attention towards health issues are structurally aligned, and to what extent the news media guides public attention. Based on data mined from 73,060 sets of the Baidu Search Index and Media Index on 20 terms covering different types of cancer from 2011 to 2020, the Granger test demonstrates that, in the last decade, public attention and media attention towards cancer in China has gone through two distinct phases. During the first phase, 2011–2015, Chinese news media still held the key in transferring the salience of issues on most cancer types to the public. In the second phase, from 2016–2020, public attention towards cancer has gradually diverged from media coverage, mirroring the imbalance and mismatch between the demand of active public and the supply of cancer information from news media. This study provides an overview of the dynamic transition on cancer issues in China over a ten-year span, along with descriptive results on public and media attention towards specific cancer types.

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“…However, in the second half phase, the media's agendasetting capabilities did not function nearly as well when their agenda was of little relevance to the concerns of the public, neither addressing nor catering to the demand for cancer information among the population over the last five years. This was especially the case in 2020 where the gap widening was accelerating as it appeared and the causal linkages between the attention from both the public and media substantially fractured, when under the conditions of an epidemic, cancer information-seeking was quite likely heightened [37,38].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverging from News Media: An Exploratory Study on the Changing Dynamics between Media and Public Attention on Cancer in China from 2011-2020

Huang¹,

Xu²,

Su³

2021

Preprint

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Over the past decade, China has witnessed fast-paced technological advancements in the media industry, as well as major shifts in the health agenda portrayed in the media. Therefore, a key starting point when discussing health communication lies in whether media attention and public attention towards health issues are structurally aligned, and to what extent the news media guide public attention. Based on data mined from 73,060 sets of the Baidu Search Index and Media Index on 20 terms covering different types of cancer from 2011 to 2020, the Granger test demonstrates that, in the last decade, public attention and media attention towards cancer in China has gone through two distinct phases. During the first phase, 2011-2015, Chinese news media still held the key in transferring the salience of issues on most cancer types to the public. In the second phase, from 2016-2020, public attention towards cancer has gradually diverged from media coverage, mirroring the imbalance and mismatch between the demand of active public and the supply of cancer information from news media. This study provides an overview of the dynamic transition on cancer issues in China over a ten-year span, along with descriptive results on public and media attention towards specific cancer types.

show abstract

Cancer Information-seeking in an Age of COVID-19: Findings from the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Information Service

Cited by 17 publications

References 32 publications

COVID-19 Communication From Seven Health Care Institutions in North Texas for English- and Spanish-Speaking Cancer Patients: Mixed Method Website Study

COVID-19 Communication From Seven Health Care Institutions in North Texas for English- and Spanish-Speaking Cancer Patients: Mixed Method Website Study

Diverging from News Media: An Exploratory Study on the Changing Dynamics between Media and Public Attention on Cancer in China from 2011–2020

Diverging from News Media: An Exploratory Study on the Changing Dynamics between Media and Public Attention on Cancer in China from 2011-2020

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