Abstract 2578: Trust in health information source and colorectal cancer screening uptake among U.S. adults

Background: In order to promote positive health behavior of the population, public health outreach is often carried out in various forms to reach the target stakeholders. However, the effectiveness of these outreach programs is unclear. Aim: To determine up-to-date adherence to colorectal cancer (CRC) screening guidelines among US adults according to the trust they have in various sources of health information. Methods: We used the 2007 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) and identified 4342 respondents (weighted population size = 82,811,829) who were at least 50 years old. Respondents expressed the degree of trust they have in various sources of health related information. We considered a source as trusted when it is trusted “a lot” or had “some trust” and regarded as not trusted if it was trusted “a little” or “not at all”. We defined being current with CRC screening as the use of fecal occult blood testing (FOBT) within 1 year, sigmoidoscopy within 5 years, or colonoscopy within 10 years. We used logistic regression models to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Survey weights were used in all analyses. Results: Approximately 94.3% of respondents trusted their doctors, 59.3% trusted family or friends, 50.2% trusted newsmagazines, 32.7% trusted radio, 66.2% trusted internet, 40.6% trusted television, 68.5% trusted government sources, 44.3% trusted charity organization and 34.5% trusted religious organizations. When compared with those who did not trust the source of health information, trust in radio (64.7% vs 60.7%; OR = 1.24; 95%CI: 1.01-1.52), internet (64.0% vs 58.3%; OR = 1.26; 95%CI: 1.04-1.53), television (64.4% vs 60.9%; OR = 1.23; 95%CI: 1.02-1.48), and government sources (64.0% vs 58.2%; OR = 1.32; 95%CI: 1.09-1.60) were associated with being up-to-date with colorectal cancer screening whereas trust in doctors (63.2% vs 49.2%; OR = 1.53; 95%CI: 0.92-2.55), family or friends (61.5% vs 63.1%; OR = 0.98; 95%CI: 0.84-1.15), newsmagazines (64.0% vs 60.8%; OR = 1.14; 95%CI: 0.98-1.32), charity organizations (62.0% vs 62.1%; OR = 1.04; 95%CI: 0.86-1.24) and religious organizations (59.7% vs 63.3%; OR = 0.90; 95%CI: 0.74-1.09) were not. Conclusion: Even with modest trust in the source of health information, outreach modalities which engage people repeatedly and those that they can readily access over and over again may exert substantial influence on the uptake of colorectal cancer screening. Multiple outreach methods should be used to promote colorectal cancer screening. Citation Format: Adeyinka O. Laiyemo, Hamidat Segunmaru, Jessica Rogers, Mohammad Daremipouran, Clinton Burnside, Florencia Gonzalez, Cherie Spencer, Carla D. Williams. Trust in health information source and colorectal cancer screening uptake among U.S. adults. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 2578.