Dispelling Colon Cancer Myths: The Role of Health Communication Channels

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers in the U.S. Previous studies have indicated that the public has misconceptions about this disease. Various health communication channels may provide cancer information to lay individuals, however, enabling them to obtain correct knowledge. Thus, the purposes of this study were to examine 1) the proportion of U.S. adults who have searched for cancer information from various health communication channels and 2) whether having ever sought cancer information was associated with not endorsing colon cancer myths. We analyzed the 2005 Health Information National Trends Survey dataset, which included a representative sample of 5,586 adults. Approximately half of the participants were female (52.4%) with a mean age of 46.0 years. Although the majority had obtained health information from newspapers (75.3%), local television news (74.9%), and internet (65.2%), only 52% had ever looked for cancer information. After adjusting for sociodemographic factors in a multivariable logistic regression model, respondents who had ever searched for cancer information from various communication channels were less likely to believe the colon cancer myth that one cannot lower the chance of colon cancer (OR= 0.65; p=0.02). Our findings indicate that, while only half of U.S. adults have sought cancer information through health communication channels, health information in these channels might dispel myths about colon cancer. Policies and health education efforts should be made to increase the public's utilization of reliable health communication channels. Future studies need to explore which health communication sources are most effective in disseminating correct colon cancer information.