Voluntary exposure to health communications.

Abstract

The research reported here concerns the factors underlying willingness to receive messages about health. The findings question some common assumptions about audiences and have important implications for the choice of media and appeals in public information programs.

Cancer‐Related Channel Selection: A Focus On Women Who Have Had a Mammography1

“…Fear also can play a major role in impeding cancer-related information seeking. Sometimes information channels are avoided because they increase uncertainty and thereby stimulate fear (Donohew, Helm, Cook, & Shatzer, 1987;Swinehart, 1968). Fear of getting breast cancer and a woman's strategies for dealing with this concern, had statistically significant group mean differences for high and low information seekers and for information seeking from the doctors channel, in the study focusing on the general population sample (Johnson et a]., 1992).…”

“…In addition, the higher one's education, the more likely it is that one will be knowledgeable about a wide array of channels and be capable of using them (Freimuth, Stein, & Kean, 1989). It has also been argued that the elderly may become resigned to approaching health problems and therefore d o not engage in as much information seeking as younger members of the population (Swinehart, 1968;Wilkinson & Wilson, 1983). Age also may be related to a n unwillingness t o use new channels, such as a n organization's telephone hotline.…”

Behavioral Science Data and Approaches Relevant to the Development of Education Programs in Cancer

“…The author, along with other behavioral scientists concerned with health behavior(2 1,27,30) has taken the position on a number of occasions that the use of mass communication to increase health behavior was not likely to be particularly productive. However, data developed by Swinehart (42) and a way of looking at mass communications noted by Bauer (6) suggest that such pessimism may not be totally warranted. One early concern was that lower "social class" groups did not exposed themselves to mass media.…”