Media use and the health information acquisition process: how callers learned about the NCI's Cancer Information Service

Abstract

We analyzed inquiries received by the Cancer Information Service (CIS), a health information telephone hot-line, to reveal effects of several media in stimulating calls to the CIS, as well as demographic characteristics of callers. Records from almost 1.8 million of these calls were collected from the US and elsewhere over five years, and were subsampled (n = 214 472) for inquiries about four cancer prevention and early detection subjects: smoking, nutrition, Pap smear screening, and breast self-examination (BSE). Results indicate that males, younger callers and individuals with less education rely more heavily than others on television as a source for learning about the CIS. Print media were cited most often by callers of Asian/Pacific ethnicity, but for all other ethnicities, television was the dominant medium for finding out about the CIS. Further analysis also revealed television to be the number one source for learning about the CIS for smoking and nutrition, but not for BSE and Pap smear. These results are probably a reflection of the larger number of televised public service announcements pertaining specifically to nutrition and especially smoking. Nevertheless, the power of all mass media in stimulating the health information aquisition process is demonstrated in these data.