title: Cancer prevention information seeking: a signal detection analysis of data from the cancer information service.
abstract: Communication and health information seeking play a significant role in the promotion of cancer prevention behaviors, including screening. Data from a sample of information seekers who contacted the National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Cancer Information Service (CIS; N = 20,412) were split randomly into an exploratory and validation sample to conduct signal detection analysis predicting cancer prevention information seeking. Important predictors of seeking prevention information in the exploratory sample were type of information seeker, communication channel, age, and gender; these findings generally were confirmed in the validation sample. Our findings also reveal important information about the demographic characteristics and communication channel preferences of cancer prevention information seekers.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland 20892-7365, USA. helen@aya.yale.edu
authors.forename: Helen W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Sullivan
authors.forename: Lila J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Finney Rutten
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D054626:Consumer Health Information / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D057226:Information Seeking Behavior; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D008875:Middle Aged; D054547:National Cancer Institute (U.S.); D009369:Neoplasms / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014481:United States