Cara L. Cuite

EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FOR STAGES OF HEALTH BEHAVIOR CHANGE : THE PRECAUTION ADOPTION PROCESS MODEL APPLIED TO HOME RADON TESTING

Hypotheses generated by the precaution adoption process model, a stage model of health behavior, were tested in the context of home radon testing. The specific idea tested was that the barriers impeding progress toward protective action change from stage to stage. An intervention describing a high risk of radon problems in study area homes was designed to encourage homeowners in the models undecided stage to decide to test, and a low-effort, how-to-test intervention was designed to encourage homeowners in the decided-to-act stage to order test kits. Interventions were delivered in a factorial design that created conditions matched or mismatched to the recipients stage (N = 1,897). Both movement to a stage closer to testing and purchase of radon test kits were assessed. As predicted, the risk treatment was relatively more effective in getting undecided people to decide to test than in getting decided-to-act people to order a test. Also supporting predictions, the low-effort intervention proved relatively more effective in getting decided-to-act people to order tests than in getting undecided people to decide to test.

A Test of Numeric Formats for Communicating Risk Probabilities

Background. Because people frequently encounter information about the probability of health risks, there is a need for research to help identify the best formats for presenting these probabilities. Methods. Three waves of participants were recruited from visitors to a cancer-related Internet site. Participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario that required them to perform 2 mathematical operations of the types that might be encountered in discussions of risk. Each wave encountered different operations. The operations used were compare, halve, triple, add, sequence, and tradeoff. Three numeric formats for communicating risk likelihoods were tested: percentages (e.g., 12%), frequencies (e.g., 12 in 100), and 1 in n (e.g., 1 in 8), and many levels of risk magnitude were crossed with the 3 formats. Results. The total sample of 16,133 individuals represented an overall participation rate of 36.1%. Although the relative performance of the formats varied by operation, aggregated across operations, the percentage and frequency formats had higher overall accuracy rates than the 1-in-n format (57% and 55% v. 45%, respectively). Participants with less education, African Americans, Hispanics, and women had more difficulty with the mathematical operations. Discussion. Percentage and frequency formats facilitate performance of simple operations on risk probabilities compared with the 1-in-n format, which should usually be avoided.

Risk compensation and vaccination: can getting vaccinated cause people to engage in risky behaviors?

Background: Some believe that vaccinating young women against human papillomavirus (HPV) will increase their risky behavior. In more formal terms, vaccination lowers risk perception, and people compensate for their lower perceived risk by reducing other preventive behaviors.Purpose: We test several predictions from the risk compensation hypothesis in the context of vaccination behavior.Methods: We obtained a random sample of adults (N=705), interviewing them by phone just as the Lyme disease vaccine first became available to the public and again 18 months later. Analyses controlled for age, sex, education, and race.Results: Vaccinated respondents were less likely to continue engaging in two of five protective behaviors after vaccination. The frequency of these protective behaviors did not dip below that among the unvaccinated respondents.Conclusions: We found some evidence of regression (protective behaviors dropping, after vaccination, to levels reported by the unvaccinated cohort). However, we did not finddisinhibition (exceeding the risk taking of the unvaccinated cohort), the greater threat to public health. Although we will not know for several years what effect HPV vaccination has on other behaviors, if any, data on other vaccinations can offer critically important information in the interim.

Preoccupation and affect as predictors of protective action following natural disaster

The actions taken by individuals after natural disasters to prepare for future disasters were studied to see whether theories of self-protective action are missing important variables. Residents of three communities struck by severe tornadoes who did not experience damage or injury (N = 715) were interviewed shortly after the tornadoes and again 14 months later. Initial responses to the tornadoes and details of the tornado experience were used to predict precautions reported at the initial and follow-up interviews. Preoccupation with tornadoes strongly predicted action independent of affect, perceived risk, and perceived control. Recollections of fear felt during the tornado and negative affect when thinking about tornadoes were also related to action: both negative affect and high fear (if combined with preoccupation) were associated with less action in the initial period following the tornadoes. Our findings suggest that the conceptualization of action as reflecting a decision about the expected costs and benefits of action is inadequate and that theories of self-protective behaviour need to include measures of preoccupation and affect as well.

When Good Food Goes Bad Television Network News and the Spinach Recall of 2006

In September 2006, an unprecedented nationwide outbreak of fresh spinach contaminated with Escherichia coli O157:H7 was communicated to the American public through press releases from the Food and Drug Administration. The potential for severe and fatal illness from consuming this spinach required effective communication by media outlets. Television network news coverage (ABC, CBS, and NBC morning and evening news shows) was examined for quantity, consistency with press release information critical for public health, and source usage. Results of this study consider the role of government information subsidies in disseminating information critical to public health, with potential impact for communication of other national health crises.

An empirical investigation of the role of knowledge in public opinion about GM food

The research presented here examines the hypothesis that the most effective way to increase public approval of GM foods is to provide education about them. To do this, a national telephone survey was conducted in the USA, which included multiple measures of knowledge about GM foods. The results indicate that all of the knowledge measures were positively related to approval, such that more knowledge was related to more approval. However, when the knowledge variables were simultaneously entered in a regression model, only one of the measures, a scale of knowledge about potentially threatening aspects of GM food, was significantly related to approval. The overall model predicted only 8% of the variance in approval, leading to the conclusion that knowledge may be just one of the many factors that influence opinions of GM food.

Nutrient analysis of varying socioeconomic status home food environments in New Jersey.

Home food inventories of Oaxacan Mexican-American and African-American families of low-socioeconomic status living in an urban area in New Jersey with at least one child under the age of 12 were conducted using Universal Product Code scanning. The African-American and Oaxacan household food supplies were compared with a sample of White households, also with at least one child under the age of 12, not of low-socioeconomic status. Nutrient Adequacy Ratios for total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate, sugar, dietary fiber, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron were used to quantify the adequacy of household food supplies per 2000 cal. The food supplies of the White households had significantly more calcium, vitamin A, and sugar and less total fat than the other two samples. The home food supplies of African-American households contained significantly less vitamin C than White and Oaxacan households. Compared to both other samples, Oaxacan household food supplies were lower in protein, sodium, and iron. Per 2000 cal, African-American households had the lowest supply of nutrients recommended to be maximized (i.e., vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, protein, and dietary fiber) and highest supply of nutrients to be minimized (i.e., total fat, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar). Overall household food quality scores were lowest for the African-American sample with no differences between Oaxacan and White household food supply quality scores.

Consumer responses to food recalls: 2008 national survey report

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Food Recalls and the American Public: Improving Communications

Terms of Use: Copyright for scholarly resources published in RUcore is retained by the copyright holder. By virtue of its appearance in this open access medium, you are free to use this resource, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings. Other uses, such as reproduction or republication, may require the permission of the copyright holder. Article begins on next page

Improving Coastal Storm Evacuation Messages

AbstractEvacuation before severe coastal storms is a critical tool for keeping coastal residents safe. Effective messaging of evacuations could help save lives, but there is little evidence-based guidance on the advantages or disadvantages of specific messaging. Ideally, evacuation messages would convince those most at risk to evacuate and those who do not need to evacuate to stay in their homes. Using an online survey of 1716 coastal residents in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, this study randomly assigned respondents to message conditions in each of two hypothetical storm scenarios. Results from the first scenario indicate that those who saw mandatory evacuation messages had higher evacuation intentions than those who saw advisory messages, and both of those messages resulted in slightly higher evacuation intentions than voluntary evacuation messages. However, voluntary messages resulted in lower evacuation intentions for those that did not live in evacuation zones compared to those who did live ...