Staying abreast of breast cancer: examining how communication and motivation relate to Singaporean women's breast cancer knowledge

Abstract

Numerous health communication studies have highlighted the importance of factual knowledge as an antecedent to health behavior, but few have explored other dimensions of health knowledge, such as structural knowledge. This study seeks to fill this gap by investigating conceptual differences between these two kinds of knowledge in the context of breast cancer in Singapore, and find out how communication and motivational factors are related to them. Using a nationally representative random-digit-dialing survey of women aged 30–70 (N = 802), results showed that interpersonal communication and elaboration were associated with both knowledge types. Attention to online health news and the level of risk perception were positively associated with structural knowledge but not factual knowledge. Theoretical and practical implications for health communication were discussed.

Keywords:

• breast cancer
• mass media
• interpersonal communication
• elaboration
• risk perception
• fatalism
• knowledge
• structural knowledge
• Singapore

Notes on contributors

Edmund W. J. Lee (Master of Communication Studies, Nanyang Technological University) is a PhD student in the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University. His research focuses on risk communication in the contexts of health, science and environmental sustainability. His works have appeared in the Journal of Risk Research and Science Communication.

Shirley S. Ho (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an Associate Professor in the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University. Her research focuses on media effects and public opinion in the contexts of science, environmental sustainability, and public health. Her work has appeared in journals such as Communication Research, Public Understanding of Science, and Journal of Health Communication.

Notes

1. To assess the amount of print coverage of breast cancer in Singapore in the past decade, we conducted a search between 2004 and 2013 on Factiva (see Figure 1) using the following search terms: (breast cancer) OR (breast cancer screening) OR (mammography) OR (Pink Ribbon Run). The search was limited to The Straits Times and Today, which are Singapore's two major newspapers.

2. There are several ways of measuring structural knowledge. Some studies asked respondents to list the concepts they could recall and rate how strongly each concept is related with another (e.g. Eveland et al., 2004a). Others like Cortese (2007) gave a specific set of statements to the respondents and asked them to rate the strength of the perceived link of all possible combinations of the concepts. We adopted the latter method in our study as it is more efficient for telephone interviews. The formula for analysis was derived from network analysis that examined how concepts are linked as a way of understanding the relationships in a domain – it is not focused on the normative nature of the links but on how individuals perceive the strength of relationships between the concepts and breast cancer in a knowledge domain (Cortese, 2007; Hussain, 2012).

3. Typically a website is considered nonlinear in design when there are in-text hyperlinks, while a linear web design is one where there are no hyperlinks and users have to read the content like a traditional text with a beginning, middle, and concluding segment.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Nanyang Technological University Research [grant number M4080259.060].