Dataset Information

Effects of Media Exposure to Conflicting Information About Mammography: Results From a Population-based Survey Experiment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Although there is growing theoretical and empirical support for the proposition that media exposure to conflicting health information negatively influences public understanding and behavior, few studies have causally linked exposure to conflict with undesirable outcomes. Such outcomes might be particularly likely in the context of mammography, given widespread media attention to conflicting recommendations about the age at and frequency with which average-risk women should be screened for breast cancer.

Purpose

The current study tests whether exposure to conflicting information about mammography negatively influences women's affective and cognitive responses and examines whether effects vary by socioeconomic position.

Methods

We conducted an online survey experiment in 2016 with a population-based sample of U.S. women aged 35-55 (N = 1,474). Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that differed in the level of conflict about mammography presented in a news story (no, low, medium, or high conflict), stratifying by poverty level.

Results

Greater exposure to conflict increased women's negative emotional responses to the story they read, their confusion about and backlash toward cancer prevention recommendations and research, and their ambivalence about mammography and other types of cancer screening, though ambivalence leveled off at high levels of exposure. There was little evidence that effects varied across socioeconomic position.

Conclusions

Findings add to the growing evidence base documenting undesirable outcomes of exposure to conflicting health information. Future research should examine whether the negative affective and cognitive responses observed translate into behavior, which could have implications for both health campaigns and patient-provider communication.

SUBMITTER: Nagler RH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6735717 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Effects of Media Exposure to Conflicting Information About Mammography: Results From a Population-based Survey Experiment.

Nagler Rebekah H RH Yzer Marco C MC Rothman Alexander J AJ

Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine 20190801 10

<h4>Background</h4>Although there is growing theoretical and empirical support for the proposition that media exposure to conflicting health information negatively influences public understanding and behavior, few studies have causally linked exposure to conflict with undesirable outcomes. Such outcomes might be particularly likely in the context of mammography, given widespread media attention to conflicting recommendations about the age at and frequency with which average-risk women should be ...[more]

PMID: 30596830

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Project description:ObjectiveThe number of patients with chronic diseases and subsequent visits to various healthcare professionals has been rising over the past decades, exposing patients to potential risks of receiving conflicting medication information. This study aims to investigate the prevalence of conflicting information on medications perceived by chronic patients in Switzerland and to understand its impact on patients' medication self-management and navigation in the healthcare system.ParticipantsThis cross-sectional study included adult patients taking at least one prescribed medication for at least 6 months, who had visited at least two physicians in the past 3 months.Main outcome measuresData on patients' perceptions of conflicting information were collected in person through a 17-item questionnaire available on paper and electronically with four domains: (1) whether the patient had perceived any conflicting information, (2) categories of conflicting information, (3) impact and (4) sources involved in the conflicting information.ResultsOf the 405 included patients, 47% perceived conflicting information related to one or more medication topics including indication, schedule, dosage, risk, severity or duration of side effects. Patients who perceived conflicting information were prescribed more drugs than those perceiving no conflicting information (p<0.01). Consequently, 65% of the participants modified their navigation of the healthcare system and 34% reported medication non-adherence. General practitioners (82%), specialist physicians (74%) and pharmacists (49%) were the healthcare professionals most often involved in conflicting information. Experience with the medication, its package insert and significant others were more frequently involved in conflicting information than internet or social media.ConclusionNearly half the patients in our study perceived conflicting information in the outpatient healthcare system, which can decrease medication effectiveness and pose safety issues. This issue is widely overlooked and unaddressed. Consistency of information among healthcare providers in partnership with patients should be reinforced through guidelines and new models of interprofessional care.

Project description:CONTEXT:As social media (eg, Twitter) continues to gain widespread popularity, health research and practice organizations may consider combining it with other electronic media (e-media) channels (eg, Web sites, e-newsletters) within their communication plans. However, little is known about added benefits of using social media when trying to reach public health audiences about physical activity. OBJECTIVE:Learn about current use and preference for e-media communication channels among physical activity researchers and practitioners. DESIGN:A Web-based survey was used, open for responses from August 20, 2015, through January 5, 2016. Survey participation was voluntary and anonymous. The survey was advertised through multiple channels targeting physical activity researchers and practitioners, including announcements on professional listservs and in e-newsletters, Twitter, and posts on Facebook pages of public health organizations. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS:A total of 284 survey respondents had complete data. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Typical use of e-media to receive, seek out, and share information about physical activity and health and what appeals to researchers and practitioners for professional use. RESULTS:Most respondents preferred non-social media channels to social media and these preferences did not differ widely when examining subgroups such as researchers versus practitioners or social media users versus nonusers. There were few differences by respondent demographics, though younger respondents reported using social media more than older respondents. However, limiting analyses to respondents who identified as social media users, only about 1% of respondents ranked social media sources as their preferred channels for information; thus, most people would continue to be reached if communication remained largely via non-social media e-media channels. CONCLUSIONS:The present study supports growing evidence that careful surveying of a target audience should be undertaken when considering new communication channels, as preference and use may not support the effort required to create and maintain resource-intensive strategies like social media.

Project description:Exposure assessment traditionally relies on biomarkers that measure chemical concentrations in individual biological media (i.e., blood, urine, etc.). However, chemicals distribute unevenly among different biological media; thus, each medium provides incomplete information about body burden. We propose that machine learning and statistical approaches can create integrated exposure estimates from multiple biomarker matrices that better represent the overall body burden, which we term multi-media biomarkers (MMBs). We measured lead (Pb) in blood, urine, hair and nails from 251 Italian adolescents aged 11-14 years from the Public Health Impact of Metals Exposure (PHIME) cohort. We derived aggregated MMBs from the four biomarkers and then tested their association with Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) IQ scores. We used three approaches to derive the Pb MMB: one supervised learning technique, weighted quantile sum regression (WQS), and two unsupervised learning techniques, independent component analysis (ICA) and non-negative matrix factorization (NMF). Overall, the Pb MMB derived using WQS was most consistently associated with IQ scores and was the only method to be statistically significant for Verbal IQ, Performance IQ and Total IQ. A one standard deviation increase in the WQS MMB was associated with lower Verbal IQ (β [95% CI] = -2.2 points [-3.7, -0.6]), Performance IQ (-1.9 points [-3.5, -0.4]) and Total IQ (-2.1 points [-3.8, -0.5]). Blood Pb was negatively associated with only Verbal IQ, with a one standard deviation increase in blood Pb being associated with a -1.7 point (95% CI: [-3.3, -0.1]) decrease in Verbal IQ. Increases of one standard deviation in the ICA MMB were associated with lower Verbal IQ (-1.7 points [-3.3, -0.1]) and lower Total IQ (-1.7 points [-3.3, -0.1]). Similarly, an increase of one standard deviation in the NMF MMB was associated with lower Verbal IQ (-1.8 points [-3.4, -0.2]) and lower Total IQ (-1.8 points [-3.4, -0.2]). Weights highlighting the contributions of each medium to the MMB revealed that blood Pb was the largest contributor to most MMBs, although the weights varied from more than 80% for the ICA and NMF MMBs to between 30% and 54% for the WQS-derived MMBs. Our results suggest that MMBs better reflect the total body burden of a chemical that may be acting on target organs than individual biomarkers. Estimating MMBs improved our ability to estimate the full impact of Pb on IQ. Compared with individual Pb biomarkers, including blood, a Pb MMB derived using WQS was more strongly associated with IQ scores. MMBs may increase statistical power when the choice of exposure medium is unclear or when the sample size is small. Future work will need to validate these methods in other cohorts and for other chemicals.

Dataset Information

Effects of Media Exposure to Conflicting Information About Mammography: Results From a Population-based Survey Experiment.

Background

Purpose

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Effects of Media Exposure to Conflicting Information About Mammography: Results From a Population-based Survey Experiment.

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