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ABSTRACT: Research on public outreach campaigns is presented.
One study examines the effects of instruction design on adherence to cancer self-screening instructions. A second study examines the effect of persuasive announcements on increasing screening campaign participation.
The first study examined adherence to screening (operationalized as returning results for evaluation) given standard instructions, or one of three other versions: persuasive, human factored, or a combination of the two.The second study investigated combining persuasion with a campaign announcement to increase participation (operationalized as picking up a test kit).
The first study found that among first-time participants, the persuasive and human-factored instructions evoked higher result return rates than did the standard. The second study found that participation was significantly increased by adding persuasion to the campaign announcement.
Enhancing motivation and reducing cognitive barriers increase adherence to test instructions and increase participation.
These are simple, cost-effective strategies that increase adherence to cancer screening in public outreach campaigns,which may reduce cancer-specific mortality.
Human Factors The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 12/2011; 53(6):637-46. · 1.19 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: A field experiment tested whether instruction design improves accurate adherence to instructions for medical do-it-yourself tests like the Fecal Occult Blood Test (FOBT). As part of an outreach campaign, 16,073 participants received FOBTs with instructions that were (i) human factored, (ii) motivational, (iii) human factored/motivational combined, or (iv) the standard used in the past. Among all test results returned (N = 2483), only the human factors instructions reduced errors in filling out result cards. However, after post-validating result cards that had errors, the human-factored, motivational and merged instructions reduced errors. The present findings show that medical instructions designed with human factors and persuasion principles increase accurate adherence. These design principles provide simple and cost-effective ways to increase test taking accuracy and FOBT effectiveness. Better screening instructions can improve the chances of detecting colorectal cancer early, which may help to decrease cancer mortality.
Health Education Research 03/2010; 25(5):709-23. · 1.66 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Persuasive health messages can be framed to emphasize the benefits of adopting a health behavior (gains) or the risks of not adopting it (losses). This study examined the effects of message framing on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors relevant to cigarette smoking. In video presentations about tobacco smoking, visual images and auditory voiceover content were framed either as gains or losses, yielding 4 message conditions. Undergraduates (N= 437) attending a public university in New England were assigned randomly to view one of these messages. Gain-framed messages about smoking in visual and auditory modalities shifted smoking-related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in the direction of avoidance and cessation. Health-communication experts, when promoting prevention behaviors like smoking avoidance or cessation, may wish to diverge from the tradition of using loss-framed messages and fear appeals in this domain, and instead consider using gain-framed appeals that present the advantages of not smoking.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology 07/2006; 31(4):667 - 682. · 0.63 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: This study examined whether providing messages matched to women's monitor-blunter coping styles is effective in encouraging mammography utilization. Female callers to a cancer information hotline were assessed at the end of their regular telephone call and classified as monitors or blunters. A randomly assigned message promoting mammography utilization, tailored for monitors or blunters, was delivered on the telephone, and a similarly tailored brochure and refrigerator magnet were mailed to participants immediately after their call. Women were telephoned 6 and 12 months later to determine whether they had obtained a mammogram. Messages matched to a woman's monitor-blunter coping style encouraged mammography after 6 months more effectively than mismatched messages and were significantly more effective for blunters but not for monitors.
Health Psychology 02/2005; 24(1):58-67. · 3.87 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: In a randomized experiment, women (N = 441) watched either a loss- or gain-framed video emphasizing the prevention or detection functions of the Pap test to test the hypothesis that loss- and gain-framed messages differentially influence health behaviors depending on the risk involved in performing the behavior. As predicted, loss-framed messages emphasizing the costs of not detecting cervical cancer early (a risky behavior) and gain-framed messages emphasizing the benefits of preventing cervical cancer (a less risky behavior) were most persuasive in motivating women to obtain a Pap test.
Journal of Health Psychology 02/2005; 10(1):65-77. · 1.22 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: This field experiment examined the persuasiveness of matching health messages to individuals' health locus of control beliefs in an effort to promote screening mammography. Women (N ¼ 499) who called the New England regional office of the Cancer Information Service were stratified by their health locus of control and randomly assigned to receive a telephone message and follow-up print materials matched to either an internal or external health locus of control orientation. As expected, women who received information consistent with their health locus of control beliefs generally were more likely to obtain a mammogram 6 and 12 months after the intervention than women who received information that was not consistent with their health locus of control orientation.
Psychology and Health August. 01/2004; 19:407-423.
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ABSTRACT: Smoking-cessation messages usually emphasize the costs of continuing to smoke (loss-framed). However, prospect theory suggests that messages that instead emphasize the benefits of quitting smoking (gain-framed) could be more effective than loss-framed messages because smoking cessation is likely viewed as a cancer-prevention behavior with a certain rather than a risky outcome. In this study, smokers at public events read brochures containing brief gain- or loss-framed smoking-cessation messages. The influence of framing was moderated by participants' need for cognition (NFC). Individuals lower in NFC had greater intention to quit after reading a gain-framed message than after reading a loss-framed message a finding consistent with our predictions whereas framing did not affect the persuasiveness of messages among people higher in NFC.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology 11/2003; 33(12):2439 - 2464. · 0.63 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The use of tailored health communications has become a favored technique for per-suading individuals to engage in health behaviors, such as screening mammography. This experiment examined the impact of tailoring persuasive health communications to one aspect of individuals' information-processing styles, that of the need for cog-nition (NFC), the enjoyment of thinking deeply about issues. To determine whether messages matched to an individual's NFC are more influential than mismatched messages, 602 women who called the Cancer Information Service (CIS) of the Na-tional Cancer Institute were asked to participate in an experiment at the end of their service call. They were assigned randomly to receive 1 of 2 phone messages promot-ing mammography use and a similarly tailored pamphlet 1 month later. Messages matched to an individual's NFC were better at motivating mammography 6 months later among high-NFC women. After controlling for prior mammography utilization, age, worry, intentions, perceived norms, suggestions to get a mammogram, and mari-tal status, the interaction between participant NFC and message type also approached statistical significance. The differential influence of these brief, tailored communica-tions diminished after 12 months, however.
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ABSTRACT: The use of tailored health communications has become a favored technique for persuading individuals to engage in health behaviors, such as screening mammography. This experiment examined the impact of tailoring persuasive health communications to one aspect of individuals' information-processing styles, that of the need for cognition (NFC), the enjoyment of thinking deeply about issues. To determine whether messages matched to an individual's NFC are more influential than mismatched messages, 602 women who called the Cancer Information Service (CIS) of the National Cancer Institute were asked to participate in an experiment at the end of their service call. They were assigned randomly to receive 1 of 2 phone messages promoting mammography use and a similarly tailored pamphlet 1 month later. Messages matched to an individual's NFC were better at motivating mammography 6 months later among high-NFC women. After controlling for prior mammography utilization, age, worry, intentions, perceived norms, suggestions to get a mammogram, and marital status, the interaction between participant NFC and message type also approached statistical significance. The differential influence of these brief, tailored communications diminished after 12 months, however.
Health Communication 02/2003; 15(4):375-92. · 0.97 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The prevention and early detection of cervical cancer is achieved through women's regular use of Pap tests. Ascertaining adherence to Pap screening guidelines is often based on self-report, which may be unreliable. This study examined the reliability of Pap test self-reports and one potential source of error in them. We predicted that women having any gynecological examination (other than Pap tests) would falsely report having had a Pap test more often than women who had not experienced gynecological procedures. We compared self-reported Pap test utilization with medical records among 161 low-income women. Women with no Pap test in their medical record but who had experienced other gynecological procedures falsely reported a Pap test significantly more often than those women who actually received a Pap test or who had not received any gynecological procedure. Confusion over what type of gynecological procedures these women received could result in their under-utilization of Pap tests. Further, these findings question the validity of study findings based only on self-reported outcomes.
Journal of Community Health 11/2002; 27(5):351-6. · 1.28 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The authors examined the effects that differently framed and targeted health messages have on persuading low-income women to obtain screening mammograms. The authors recruited 752 women over 40 years of age from community health clinics and public housing developments and assigned the women randomly to view videos that were either gain or loss framed and either targeted specifically to their ethnic groups or multicultural. Loss-framed, multicultural messages were most persuasive. The advantage of loss-framed, multicultural messages was especially apparent for Anglo women and Latinas but not for African American women. These effects were stronger after 6 months than after 12 months. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Health Psychology 06/2001; 20(4):256-266. · 3.87 Impact Factor
