RTI International, Washington, DC, USA.
J Health Commun. 2010 Oct;15(7):734-53. doi: 10.1080/10810730.2010.514029.
The amount of cancer-related information available in the media and other sources continues to increase each year. We wondered how people make use of such content in making specific health decisions. We studied both the information they actively seek ("seeking") and that which they encounter in a less purposive way ("scanning") through a nationally representative survey of adults aged 40-70 years (n = 2,489) focused on information use around three prevention behaviors (dieting, fruit and vegetable consumption, and exercising) and three screening test behaviors (prostate-specific antigen, colonoscopy, mammogram). Overall, respondents reported a great deal of scanning and somewhat less seeking (on average 62% versus 28% for each behavior), and they used a range of sources including mass media, interpersonal conversations, and the Internet, alongside physicians. Seeking was predicted by female gender, age of 55-64 vs. 40-44, higher education, Black race and Hispanic ethnicity, and being married. Scanning was predicted by older age, female gender, and education. Respondents were fairly consistent in their place on a typology of scanning and seeking across behaviors. Seeking was associated with all six behaviors, and scanning was associated with three of six behaviors.
媒体和其他来源提供的癌症相关信息每年都在不断增加。我们想知道人们在做出特定健康决策时如何利用这些内容。我们通过对 40-70 岁成年人（n=2489）进行了一项全国性调查，重点关注围绕三种预防行为（节食、水果和蔬菜摄入、锻炼）和三种筛查测试行为（前列腺特异性抗原、结肠镜检查、乳房 X 光检查）的信息使用情况，研究了人们主动寻求的信息（“主动寻求”）和以非特定目的方式获取的信息（“被动扫描”）。总体而言，受访者报告说他们进行了大量的扫描，而主动寻求的情况则稍少（平均而言，每种行为的扫描率为 62%，而主动寻求率为 28%），他们使用了各种来源，包括大众媒体、人际对话和互联网，以及医生。女性性别、55-64 岁与 40-44 岁、较高的教育程度、黑人种族和西班牙裔、已婚状态与主动寻求有关。年龄较大、女性性别和教育程度与被动扫描有关。受访者在跨行为的扫描和寻求分类中，他们的位置相当一致。主动寻求与所有六种行为有关，而被动扫描与六种行为中的三种有关。
