There is increasing concern that the media present conflicting health information on topics including cancer screening and nutrition. Although scholars have speculated that exposure to this information leads to increased public confusion, less trust in health recommendations, and less engagement in health behaviors, there is a lack of empirical research that directly addresses the role of media exposure to conflicting information. Using data from the Annenberg National Health Communication Survey, this study finds that exposure to conflicting information on the health benefits and risks of, for example, wine, fish, and coffee consumption is associated with confusion about what foods are best to eat and the belief that nutrition scientists keep changing their minds. There is evidence that these beliefs, in turn, may lead people to doubt nutrition and health recommendations more generally—including those that are not rife with contradictory information (e.g., fruit and vegetable consumption, exercise). The implications of these findings for healthy eating campaigns and interventions are discussed.

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 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.

Objective-There is much research describing cancer patients' information needs and their use of the Internet, print media, and other sources to fulfill these needs. Yet little is known about whether patients with different types of cancer vary in their information needs and seeking behaviors. This study used population-based data to address this question.Methods-A sample was randomly drawn from the list of patients with breast, prostate, or colorectal cancer reported to the Pennsylvania Cancer Registry in 2005. Patients completed a mail survey (N=2010); respective response rates were 68%, 64%, and 61%.Results-Colorectal cancer patients reported consistently less information seeking than breast and prostate cancer patients. Multivariate analyses revealed that differences by cancer type were not explained by sex or other demographics, disease stage, or treatment received. These differences were most pronounced among patients with early stage cancer. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Conflict of interestNone of the authors has any conflicts of interest to disclose. Conclusion-Cancer patients have myriad information needs and use a range of sources to satisfy these needs, but there appear to be important differences in information engagement by cancer type. NIH Public AccessPractice implications-Understanding differences in information seeking among diseasespecific populations may help guide future patient education and decision making across the care continuum.