The Angelina effect: immediate reach, grasp, and impact of going public

Abstract

Results: While three of four Americans were aware of Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy, fewer than 10% of respondents had the information necessary to accurately interpret Ms Jolie's risk of developing cancer relative to a woman unaffected by the BRCA gene mutation. Awareness of the Angelina Jolie story was not associated with improved understanding. Conclusion:While celebrities can bring heightened awareness to health issues, there is a need for these messages to be accompanied by more purposeful communication efforts to assist the public in understanding and using the complex diagnostic and treatment information that these stories convey.Genet Med advance online publication 19 December 2013

The Critical Challenge of Educating the Public About Genetics

“…Kamenova et al [41] found that many stories on Ms. Jolie's decision were missing key information about how rare BRCA 1/2 variants are in the general public. As a result, even members of the public who could accurately recall Ms. Jolie's breast cancer risk could not contextualize that information to an average woman's risk of developing breast cancer [42].…”

Media portrayal of non-invasive prenatal testing: a missing ethical dimension

“…This term was used in the popular press and in the scholarly literature to describe the impact of actress Angelina Jolie's disclosure in an op-ed piece in New York Times from May 14, 2013 that she carries a high-risk BCRA1 mutation and has chosen to undergo bilateral prophylactic mastectomy. Although Jolie's prophylactic mastectomy received unprecedented publicity and contributed to the salience of the issues of hereditary breast/ovarian cancer, the extended media coverage did not increase the public understanding of cancer risks and who should be tested for BRCA 1/2 mutations [Kamenova, Reshef and Caulfield, 2013;Borzekowski et al, 2013]. Rather, a considerable upsurge in requests for BRCA 1/2 genetic testing was observed after her disclosure, particularly from individuals at low risk for hereditary breast/ovarian cancer [MacCuaig, 2014;Evans et al, 2014].…”

Informing or Exploiting? Public Reponses to Giuliana Rancic’s Health Narrative

“…In Rancic's case, by the time some members of the public interacted with her narrative, it had been filtered dozens of times, especially when personal blogs and entrainment web sites reported on stories published elsewhere. The failure of a celebrity narrative to motivate or connect to audiences could rest, in part, with the nature of the coverage itself and what is present or absent in media-framed portrayals (Bishop, 2005;Borzekowski et al, 2013).…”

“…However, the intense attention and public fervor that often accompany celebrity announcements, like Angelina Jolie's revelation of her decision to undergo a prophylactic double mastectomy (Borzekowski et al, 2013), can sometimes serve to alarm, rather than inform the public (Hilton & Hunt, 2010;Kelaher et al, 2008).…”