Journal of health communication
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Research has shown that fax referral services play an important role in linking people who are ready to quit tobacco use with effective cessation support provided through telephone-based quitlines. While many states have implemented fax referral services to assist health care providers in connecting their patients to quitlines, few published studies delineate optimum ways to promote this service to providers, particularly the role of direct mail educational campaigns. This is one of the first studies to evaluate the effectiveness of a small-scale educational and promotional campaign designed to increase health care providers' awareness and utilization of a state tobacco cessation quitline fax referral service. ⋯ The pilot promotional campaign increased awareness of the fax referral service more than service utilization. While increased utilization of the service by health care providers appears promising, additional research is needed on how to maximize educational and promotional campaigns that influence clinician fax referral behaviors. The results of this study can help guide the development of future fax referral promotional campaigns to increase clinician access to and utilization of state quitlines.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Why do patients seek an alternative channel? The effects of unmet needs on patients' health-related Internet use.
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer found among women in the United States. During the course of the illness, women diagnosed with breast cancer need information and support to cope with the illness. ⋯ Likewise, the higher the unmet need for emotional support was, the more likely individuals were to spend time in social support services such as discussion groups. Implications for future research on unmet needs and the use of the Internet were discussed.
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The concept of health literacy evolved from a history of defining, redefining, and quantifying the functional literacy needs of the adult population. Along with these changes has come the recognition that sophisticated literacy skills are increasingly needed to function in society and that low literacy may have an effect on health and health care. We present a brief history of literacy in the United States, followed by a discussion of the origins and conceptualization of health literacy. Increased attention to this important issue suggests the need to review existing definitions of the term "health literacy," because despite the growing interest in this field, one question that persists is, "What is health literacy?"
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The mechanisms underlying the relationship between health literacy, numeracy, and glycemic control are unclear. We explored the role of diabetes self-efficacy in the predicted pathway linking health literacy and numeracy to glycemic control (A1C). Adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes mellitus (N = 383) were enrolled in a cross-sectional study at primary care and diabetes clinics at three medical centers. ⋯ When considered in combination, numeracy was related to diabetes self-efficacy (r = 0.13, p < .05), and the effect of health literacy on diabetes self-efficacy was reduced to non-significance (r = 0.06, p = .30). Health literacy and numeracy are each associated with greater diabetes self-efficacy, and greater diabetes self-efficacy is associated with lower A1C levels. Diabetes self-efficacy may be an important target of interventions to improve diabetes control and promote health equity related to health literacy and general numeracy skills needed for diabetes management.
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Health communication is critical to promoting healthy lifestyles and preventing unhealthy behaviors. However, populations may differ in terms of their trust in and use of health information sources, including mass media, the Internet, and interpersonal channels. We used the 2005 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) to test the hypothesis that Hispanics who are less comfortable speaking English would differ from Hispanics who are comfortable speaking English with respect to trust in health information sources and media use. ⋯ Hispanics comfortable speaking English reported much higher levels of Internet use (54% versus 14%, p < .0001). Hispanics who are not comfortable speaking English may be difficult to reach, not only because of language barriers and lower trust in media, but also because they report relatively little use of various media channels. These findings have important implications for health communications toward non-native speakers of English in general and Hispanics in particular.