Journal of health communication
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During and after the 2011 Republican presidential debate, a candidate questioned the safety of HPV vaccine. The authors aimed to determine the effect of these comments on parents. A national sample of 327 parents with adolescent sons ages 11-17 years completed online surveys in fall 2010 (baseline, about 1 year before the debate) and 2011 (follow-up, about 1 month after the debate). ⋯ Parents aware of the comments had a larger increase between baseline and follow-up in the belief that HPV vaccine might cause short-term health problems compared with parents who were not aware. Although the candidate's comments may have increased some parents' beliefs about the short-term harms of HPV vaccine, the comments had no effect on other beliefs, willingness to vaccinate, or behavior. Having accurate information about HPV vaccine that is readily available to the public during such controversies may diminish their effect.
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Media coverage of contentious risk issues often features competing claims about whether a risk exists and what scientific evidence shows, and journalists often cover these issues by presenting both sides. However, for topics defined by scientific agreement, balanced coverage erroneously heightens uncertainty about scientific information and the issue itself. In this article, we extend research on combating so-called information and issue uncertainty using weight of evidence, drawing on the discredited autism-vaccine link as a case study. ⋯ Postexposure issue uncertainty decreased-in other words, issue certainty increased-from preexposure levels across all conditions. Moreover, weight-of-evidence messages were associated with positive vaccine attitudes indirectly via reduced information uncertainty (i.e., one's belief that scientific opinion and evidence concerning a potential link is unclear) as well as issue uncertainty. We discuss implications for risk communication.
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Clinical trials help advance public health and medical research on prevention, diagnosis, screening, treatment, and quality of life. Despite the need for access to quality care in medically underserved areas, clinical trial participation remains low among individuals in rural and African American communities. This study assessed clinical trial research in South Carolina's five main academic medical centers, focusing specifically on clinical trial investigators' perceived barriers to recruitment in the general population and in rural and African American communities. ⋯ Barriers focusing on communication or awareness proved to be the biggest hurdles to finding potential participants in both the general public and rural communities. Psychological barriers to recruitment were perceived to be most prevalent in African American communities. Study findings provide important insights from the perspective of the clinical trial investigator that will aid in the development of effective communication and education strategies for reaching rural and African American residents with information about clinical trials.
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Inadequate health literacy has been associated with poorer health behaviors and outcomes in individuals with diabetes or depression. This study was conducted to examine the associations between inadequate health literacy and behavioral and cardiometabolic parameters in individuals with type 2 diabetes and to explore whether these associations are affected by concurrent depression. The authors used cross-sectional data from a study of 343 predominantly African Americans with type 2 diabetes. ⋯ There was no evidence that depression was an effect-modifier of the associations between health literacy and outcomes. Although inadequate health literacy was modestly associated with worse knowledge and weakly associated with self-efficacy, it was not associated with any of the cardiometabolic parameters the authors studied. Because this study showed no association between health literacy and behavioral and cardiometabolic outcomes, it is unseemly and premature to embark on trials or controlled interventions to improve health literacy for the purposes of improving patient-related outcomes in diabetes.
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The authors analyzed the influence of acculturation on parental attitudes to, and use of, different sources of health advice about young children's food in Denmark. Using combined ethnic position of the children's parents as a proxy for household acculturation, the authors conducted a postal survey of 2,511 households with young children (6 months to 3.5 years) occupying ethnic minority, ethnic majority, or ethnic mixed position. The analysis showed that the use of advice differed in the 3 groups. ⋯ Although existing dietary health communication strategies delivered by public health nurses appear to work well in all household types, parents from minority households seem to experience dilemmas. These may be related to their cultural and generational status at the time of receiving the advice. Adjustments to current communication strategies on young children's food are suggested.