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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Michelle Yeboah, DrPh¹, Grace Huang, MPH², Vicki Beck, MS², and Pamela Marcus, MS, PhD³. (1) Health Resources Services Administration, 5025 Leasdale Rd., Rosedale, MD 21237, (2) Hollywood, Health & Society Program, USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, 8383 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 650, Beverly Hills, CA 90211, (3) Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, 6130 Executive Blvd. Suite 3131, Bethesda, MD 20892-7354, (301) 496-7468, marcusp@mail.nih.gov

For many, the healthcare system can be a daunting experience. Specifically, research has shown that minority and immigrant groups, including African Americans, are less likely to seek preventive care and treatment from the medical setting due to language barriers and different cultural beliefs. As a result of negative historical and personal experiences with society and the healthcare system, many have endorsed these predicaments to their detriment.

Entertainment education is a method of utilizing entertainment channels to educate populations on various topics. We will describe the development of a TV storyline on popular, long-running medical show that features an African American woman who faces these barriers in battling cancer. We will also show clips, discuss the role of public health experts who consulted with the writers, and present quantitative data from a pre- post-test survey assessing impact on viewers' knowledge of support structures in the health system, beliefs about certain cancer myths, attitudes towards seeking more information, and intentions to be screened and treated for breast cancer.

The health care system continues to face the challenge of an existing legacy of distrust and cultural barriers. Through the use of entertainment education, societal barriers and myths related to health are can be addressed and more promising options as well as benefits of treatment can be illustrated. Acknowledging these aspects of the health care system via television storylines may help to create dialogue which can address the barriers and improve healthcare outcomes for minority immigrants and other at-risk groups.

Learning Objectives:

• • Assess the effectiveness of television storylines in disseminating credible information and dispelling misinformation about preventing and treating cancer.
• • Discuss the impact of messages on racially, ethnically and economically diverse audiences.
• • Describe factors in certain populations that increase their health risk for a range of chronic diseases.

Keywords: Health Disparities, Cancer

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No