Communicating about cigarette smoke constituents: an experimental comparison of two messaging strategies

Federal law now requires FDA to disseminate information on chemicals in cigarette smoke, but it is unclear how best to do so. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment, participants received a message about chemicals in cigarette smoke (e.g., “Cigarette smoke has benzene.”) along with an additional randomly assigned messaging strategy: a “found-in” (e.g., “This is found in gasoline.”), a health effect (e.g., “This causes heart disease.”), both, or neither. Participants were U.S. probability phone samples of 5000 adults and 1123 adolescents, and an online convenience sample of 4130 adults. Adding a health effect elicited greater discouragement from wanting to smoke cigarettes (all p < .05) as did adding a found-in (all p < .05). However, including both messaging strategies added little or nothing above including just one. These findings can help the FDA and other agencies develop effective and parsimonious messages about cigarette smoke constituents

A Community-Driven Intervention for Improving Biospecimen Donation in African American Communities

Introduction Human biospecimens are an invaluable resource for addressing cancers and other chronic diseases. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of an educational intervention on biospecimen knowledge and attitudes. Methods The participants consisted of 112 African Americans, 18 years and older, and who had not provided biospecimens for any health-related research in the past. A total of 55 participants received the educational brochure, and 57 received the educational video. The main outcomes of the study were knowledge and attitudes for biospecimen donation. This information was collected pre- and post-intervention. Results The average knowledge scores increased (p \u3c 0.0001) and the average attitude scores for biospecimen donation improved (p \u3c 0.0001) post-intervention for both the video and brochure conditions. There was an interaction between the intervention condition and knowledge where the participants who received the educational video showed a greater increase in knowledge pre-to-post compared to those who received the educational brochure (p = 0.0061). There were no significant interactions between the two intervention conditions for attitudes toward biospecimen donation. Discussion The results of this study demonstrated the feasibility and efficacy of an academic institution collaborating with the African American community in developing educational tools for biospecimen donation

Exploring Source Credibility when Communicating about Agricultural Science on Twitter

Universities must strategically communicate agricultural science to effectively reach millennials skeptical of agricultural innovations and constantly assessing the credibility of online information. Universities are trusted information sources and must maintain credibility on social media platforms such as Twitter, used by millennials to receive and share information. Source credibility seeks to understand message source and recipient characteristics that influence recipients’ perceptions of a source’s expertise and trustworthiness. The purpose of this study was to explore differences in engagement when specific factors affecting source credibility were emphasized when communicating with millennials about agricultural science on Twitter. The purpose was accomplished by describing the level of engagement and the differences in engagement observed between perceived gender, race, and age of university scientists. Over seven months, researchers wrote press releases about published journal articles authored by two or more diverse, university-affiliated scientists. They published multiple tweets about each release, with the only difference being the scientists’ headshots. Scientists were categorized as perceived male versus female, White versus Non-White, and older versus younger. Descriptive analysis of engagement metrics from 32 tweets found those with females performed better than those with males. Non-White scientist tweets performed better with the exception of engagement rate. Tweets featuring younger scientists received more engagement than older. The exploratory results implied tweets featuring young, Non-White females may elicit higher engagement. Future studies should examine if engagement metrics are correlated with source credibility dimensions. Strategically featuring diverse scientists in research communication may be utilized to build engagement in universities’ social media

Risk perception of food safety and behavioral intentions to read food safety labels

Food safety incidents occur frequently in China. Chinese people\u27s health is at risk due to the variety of Chinese food safety problems. The Chinese government has enacted many programs and policies to address this issue. The purpose of this study was to understand how Chinese college students perceive these food safety risks and what motivates them to take preventative measures toward reducing their risk. To better understand Chinese college students\u27 perception and their behavioral intention related to food safety, this study tested the relationships between threat appraisal (severity and vulnerability) of food safety and behavioral intention to read food-safety labels and buy food with food safety labels, coping appraisal (response efficacy and self-efficacy) and behavioral intention to read food-safety labels and buy food with food safety labels in Protection Motivation Theory. Chinese students in a large Midwestern university were recruited via an email invitation to take an online survey asking about their perception of food safety in China and their intentions to read food-safety labels and buy food with food safety labels. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 22.0. Positive relationships were detected between severity, vulnerability, response efficacy, self-efficacy and behavioral intention. Severity was the strongest factor (β= .365, p\u3c .01) that influenced behavioral intention in this study after controlling for knowledge and mass media dependence. These outcomes suggested that Chinese college students\u27 intentions to read food-safety labels and buy food with food safety labels were increasing as their perception about food safety went up. Meanwhile, they were more likely to follow the recommendations to read food-safety labels and buy food with food safety labels when severity of food safety was stressed

Factors influencing user participation in social media: Evidence from twitter usage during COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia

With increasing frequency, people are using social media sites to obtain timely information about the world's grand challenges and this phenomenon is amplified during crises. However, little research has been conducted to determine how people participate and how their involvement can be promoted on social media sites, although the critical role played by those sites has been well documented. Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study develops and tests a theoretical model to establish the effect of several factors with survey data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, in Saudi Arabia. The relationship was verified on a sample of 213 respondents active on Twitter, using Partial Least Square (PLS). The study found that attitude, perceived behavioural control and subjective norm affect Twitter users' active participation significantly within the context of a time of crisis. It also found a positive effect of utilitarian and hedonic values and trust. These results will provide a more comprehensive evaluation of Twitter users in grand challenges (and more specifically during a crisis) and furnish academics and managers with instructive guidance. © 2021 Elsevier Lt

Digital Human Representations for Health Behavior Change: A Structured Literature Review

Organizations have increasingly begun using digital human representations (DHRs), such as avatars and embodied agents, to deliver health behavior change interventions (BCIs) that target modifiable risk factors in the smoking, nutrition, alcohol overconsumption, and physical inactivity (SNAP) domain. We conducted a structured literature review of 60 papers from the computing, health, and psychology literatures to investigate how DHRs’ social design affects whether BCIs succeed. Specifically, we analyzed how differences in social cues that DHRs use affect user psychology and how this can support or hinder different intervention functions. Building on established frameworks from the human-computer interaction and BCI literatures, we structure extant knowledge that can guide efforts to design future DHR-delivered BCIs. We conclude that we need more field studies to better understand the temporal dynamics and the mid-term and long-term effects of DHR social design on user perception and intervention outcomes

Social Media And Credibility Indicator: The Effects Of Bandwagon And Identity Cues Within Online Health And Risk Contexts

Three studies were conducted to investigate how social media affordances influence individuals’ source credibility perceptions in risk situations. The MAIN model (Sundar, 2008), warranting theory (Walther & Parks, 2002), and signaling theory (Donath, 1999) served as the theoretical framework to examine the effects of bandwagon cues and identity cues embedded in retweets and users’ profile pages for health and risk online information processing. Study One examines whether bandwagon heuristics triggered by retweets would influence individuals’ source credibility judgments. Study Two investigates how bandwagon heuristics interact with different identity heuristics in credibility heuristics on an individual level. Study Three explores bandwagon heuristics at the organizational level. Three post-test only experiments with self-report online surveys were conducted to investigate the hypothesis and research questions. Results indicate that different online heuristic cues impact the judgments of competence, goodwill, and trustworthiness at different levels. Authority strongly influenced source credibility perceptions. A reverse-bandwagon effect was observed in influencing source credibility judgments. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed