Communicating Multiple Disease Risks

The Washington University

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 1

Conditions: Healthy

Treatments: Other: Survey; Behavioral: Cognitive interview

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02621671

201501028

Details and patient eligibility

About

Epidemiology seeks to improve public health by identifying risk factors for cancer and other diseases and conveying that information to relevant audiences. The audience is presumed to understand and use that information to make appropriate decisions about lifestyle behaviors and medical treatments. Yet, even though a single risk factor can affect the risk of multiple health outcomes, this information is seldom communicated to people in a way that optimizes their understanding of the importance of engaging in a single healthy behavior. Providing individuals with the ability to understand how a single behavior (obtaining sufficient physical activity) could affect their risk of developing multiple diseases could foster a more coherent and meaningful picture of the behavior's importance in reducing health risks, increase motivation and intentions to engage in the behavior, and over time improve public health.

The proposed study translates epidemiological data about five diseases that cause significant morbidity and mortality (i.e., colon cancer, breast cancer (women), heart disease, diabetes, and stroke) into a visual display that conveys individualized risk estimates in a comprehensible, meaningful, and useful way to diverse lay audiences.

Enrollment: 1,191 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 30 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 30-65 years of age
• Able to read and communicate in English
• Not meeting national guidelines for aerobic physical activity (at least 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobic physical activity)

Exclusion criteria

• Less than 30 years of age
• Older than 65 years of age
• Not able to read and communicate in English
• Meets national guidelines for aerobic physical activity (at least 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobic physical activity)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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1,191 participants in 2 patient groups

Arm 1: Cognitive Interviews

Experimental group

Description:

* Participants will complete several survey items, view 1 of 8 disease risk pictures (selected at random), and then complete further survey questions. * Participants will then be recorded giving their opinions on the remaining 7 disease risk pictures which depict the hypothetical risk of disease. * The entire visit will take no more than 90 minutes with no follow-up. * The first 10-20 participants will be randomized to this arm.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive interview

Other: Survey

Arm 2: Experimental survey

Experimental group

Description:

* Participants will be randomly assigned by GfK's computer to one of the 12 experimental conditions. * After completing questions about information seeking and physical activity, the participants will read a short scenario that describes the purpose of a risk assessment tool and ask them to imagine that they had just entered their information into such a tool. * Participants will see whichever risk ladder corresponds to the experimental condition to which they were assigned. * The hypothetical display will be consistent with a display generated for an individual whose risk profile includes risk increasing and decreasing factors, but does not engage in the recommended amount of physical activity.

Treatment:

Other: Survey