Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
Cancer Causes Control. 2009 Dec;20(10):1975-83. doi: 10.1007/s10552-009-9392-1.
Causal beliefs about cancer may influence preventive behaviors and medical care. We examined the relationship between beliefs about causation for lung, colon, and skin cancer and the use of lay interpersonal sources of health information (community organizations, family, friends).
Data from a nationally representative sample of 5,119 adult respondents to the 2005 Health Information National Trends Survey were analyzed.
About 40% of respondents reported that community organizations provided them with health information, while 15% discussed health information “very frequently” with their family or friends. In multivariate models, individuals who never spoke with family or friends about health were more likely to believe that colon cancer risk is not modifiable; those provided with health information by community organizations were less likely to believe that skin cancer risk is not modifiable. Speaking with family or friends about health was also associated with endorsing the belief that skin cancer is caused by behavior or lifestyle.
These findings showed that lay interpersonal health information sources are associated with beliefs about the modifiability of colon and skin cancer risk. Future research is needed to investigate whether and how such information sources might influence decisions about engaging in preventive behaviors.
关于癌症的因果信念可能会影响预防行为和医疗保健。我们研究了对肺癌、结肠癌和皮肤癌的病因信念与利用非专业人际健康信息源（社区组织、家庭、朋友）之间的关系。
对 2005 年全国健康信息趋势调查中 5119 名成年受访者的代表性样本数据进行了分析。
约 40%的受访者表示社区组织向他们提供了健康信息，而 15%的受访者经常与家人或朋友讨论健康信息。在多变量模型中，从不与家人或朋友谈论健康的个体更有可能认为结肠癌风险是不可改变的；而从社区组织获得健康信息的个体则不太可能认为皮肤癌风险是不可改变的。与家人或朋友谈论健康也与相信皮肤癌是由行为或生活方式引起的信念有关。
这些发现表明，非专业人际健康信息源与对结肠癌和皮肤癌风险可改变性的信念有关。未来需要进一步研究这些信息源是否以及如何影响人们参与预防行为的决策。
