Cognitive and Affective Responses to Mass-media Based Genetic Risk Information in a Socio-demographically Diverse Sample of Smokers

Abstract

Many individuals receive information about genomics from the mass media. When media reports are about conditions that are considered behavioral, such as smoking, they may negatively affect some health-promoting cognitions. We examined how informing adult smokers about the genetic basis for nicotine addiction influenced smoking-related health cognitions and affect and whether responses varied by socio-demographics or genetics beliefs. We recruited 392 smokers (Mage = 44.5, 52.8% African American, 51.3% no college experience, 66.2% women) from public locations in a mid-sized Midwestern city. They were randomly assigned to read a news article describing either a pharmacy’s decision to stop selling tobacco (n = 78) or the discovery of a gene associated with increased risk of nicotine addiction and lung cancer (n = 314). Participants also completed a survey assessing socio-demographics, health cognitions (quit intentions, self-efficacy, response efficacy, perceived risk), affect (worry, anticipated regret), genetic determinism, and other genetics beliefs. ANOVAs revealed no statistically significant main effects of genetic information on any health cognitions or affects. Linear regressions revealed that socio-demographics and genetics beliefs moderated very few effects. This suggests that concerns that mass media-based dissemination of genetic discoveries may have detrimental effects on smoking-related cognitions and affects are likely unwarranted.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee for Washington University in Saint Louis and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a Mentored Research Scholar Grant awarded to Erika Waters by the American Cancer Society (ACS), MRSG-11-214-01-CBBP, by the Washington University Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences grant UL1TR000448 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Barnes Jewish Hospital Foundation.