You are What you Seek: Exploring Health Information Seeking Mediated By Gender

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You are What you Seek Exploring Health
Information Seeking Mediated By Gender

• Darrell Burke, Ph.D.
• Assistant Professor
• Medical Informatics
• College of Information

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Todays Journey

• Why Cancer?
• Selecting a Cancer (Apples-to-Apples)
• Review of Site Specific Cancer Information Seeking

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Todays Journey

• Methodology
• Findings
• Policy Implications
• Study Limitations
• Future Work

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5 Billion/Day
Cancer 72B/Yr
http//www.chcf.org/documents/insurance/HealthCare
Costs06.pdf
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Selecting a Cancer

• Prostate
• 8B Treatment
• Newly Diagnosed
• 234K/year
• Deaths
• 27K/yr
• Research Funding
• 309M
• Research /Death
• 11K

• Breast
• 8B Treatment
• Newly Diagnosed
• 213K/year
• Deaths
• 41K/yr
• Research Funding
• 560M
• Research /Death
• 14K

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Facts

• Third leading cause of death by cancer in Men
• African American men have about a 60 higher
  incidence rate than white men
• African American men have about a 2-fold higher
  mortality rate than white men

http//seer.cancer.gov/publications/prostate/incid
ence.html
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http//seer.cancer.gov/publications/prostate/inc_m
ort.pdf
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http//seer.cancer.gov/publications/prostate/inc_m
ort.pdf
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http//seer.cancer.gov/publications/prostate/inc_m
ort.pdf
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http//seer.cancer.gov/publications/prostate/inc_m
ort.pdf
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Prostate Information Needs/Uses

• Pre- treatment
• Likelihood of Cure, Stage of Disease, Types of
  treatments (Davison et al, 1995)
• Will treatment make me impotent?
  (Feldman-Steward et al,1998)
• Spouses wanted much more information than
  patient, More Medical/Technical than
  Psychosocial, (Krol et al, 2000)
• 90 Used Non-systematic Decision Processes for
  Selecting a Treatment Option (Steginga et al,
  2001)
• Treatment
• Comfort Measures, Activity Restrictions (Brandt,
  1991)
• Post Surgery
• Urinary incontinence, Impotence (Moore
  Esty,1999)

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Prostate Information Needs Not Met

• 31 Dissatisfied with all information obtained
  (Gray et al, 1997)
• 17 felt they were not knowledgeable to make an
  informed decision (Crawford et al, 1997)
• 30 of men and 25 of their family members report
  not receiving timely and appropriate information
  (Prostate Cancer Charity (UK), 2000)

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Prostate Information Sources

• The internet was Identified as a vehicle to
  provide men an environment to overcome the
  psychosocial masculine attitudes that
  counteract the way in which men interact with
  their doctor, use health services, access health
  information and contemplate their well being.
  (Dragan et al, 2005)
• 24 of prostate cancer patients considered active
  seekers used the internet for prostate
  information (Hellawell et al, 2000)

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Data Source

• 2003 Health Information National Trends Survey
  (HINTS) n6,369
• Collects nationally representative data routinely
  about the American public's use of cancer-related
  information. The survey
• Provides updates on changing patterns, needs, and
  information opportunities in health
• Identifies changing communications trends and
  practices
• Assesses cancer information access and usage
• Provides information about how cancer risks are
  perceived

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Methodology

• SPSS 14
• Descriptive Statistics

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Take - Aways

• Most men do not normally seek information about
  cancer
• As expected, seeking information increases with a
  cancer diagnosis
• Despite the late age at prostate cancer diagnosis
  the internet remains the largest initial source
  of initial information
• Education appears related to internet use

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Limitations

• Of the respondents to the survey only whites with
  prostate cancer reported seeking prostate
  information
• Findings can only be generalized to responding
  sample
• Survey Response Bias
• Results used 2003 data

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Next Step

• Include other variables (cancer knowledge,
  screening, etc)
• Compare sample with 2005 survey
• Explore alternate sources to be more inclusive of
  the population at risk

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Questions?