Cheryl Holt, PhD, School of Medicine, Division of Preventive Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1717 11th Avenue South, Suite 641, Birmingham, AL 35205, (205) 934-2816, cholt@uab.edu

In partnership with an African American church, we developed an educational booklet on breast cancer early detection from within a spiritual framework. This booklet included religious themes and biblical scripture supporting the early detection message, for women ages forty and over to have regular mammograms. The spiritually-based booklet was compared against a demographically-targeted booklet (for African American women, but with no spiritual or religious content) for communication effectiveness using an Elaboration Likelihood Model framework. One hundred and twelve African American women were randomly assigned to receive one of the booklets, read the assigned booklet, and complete a series of questionnaires about the booklet they had read. This included a thought-listing task where women listed all the thoughts they had while reading the booklet and rated each thought as positive, negative, or neutral in valence. Number of positive thoughts about the booklet was examined as a measure of persuasive communication. Responses to Likert-type items assessing attitudes and opinions about the booklets were also compared. In addition, one-month follow-up ratings of the booklets were compared. Results and implications for church-based cancer communication are discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe how the Elaboration Likelihood Model was used to evaluate the communication effectiveness of two print-based breast cancer communication interventions.
• Describe the results of a randomized trial comparing the effectiveness of spiritually-based versus standard breast cancer communication print materials among African American women.
• Discuss implications of the results of this randomized trial for the development of church-based cancer communication interventions for African American women.

Keywords: African American, Breast Cancer

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.