Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #111172

Matthew W. Kreuter, PhD, MPH¹, Kathleen Holmes, MPH, RN², Deborah O. Erwin, PhD³, JoAnne Banks-Wallace, PhD, RN⁴, Shanti Parikh, PhD⁵, Eddie Clark, PhD⁶, Katherine Mathews, MD, MPH⁷, James Scott, PhD⁸, Qiang Fu, MD, MPH⁹, Catina Scott, PhD¹, Delores Dotson, MD¹⁰, Leslie Hinyard, MSW¹⁰, Lou Robinson, MS¹, and The Board of Community Partners². (1) Health Communication Research Laboratory, Center for Cultural Cancer Communication, School of Public Health, Saint Louis University, 3545 Lafayette, Salus Center Suite 429, Saint Louis, MO 63104, 314-977-8132, kreuter@slu.edu, (2) Health Communication Research Laboratory, Center for Cultural Cancer Communication, School of Public Health, School of Public Health, Saint Louis University, 3545 Lafayette Ave., Salus Center Suite 407A, St. Louis, MO 63104, (3) The Witness Project, U of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Arkansas Cancer Research Center, 4301 W. Markham, #820, Little Rock, AR 72205, (4) School of Nursing, University of Missouri-Columbia, S-324, Columbia, MO 65211, (5) Anthropology, Washington University, One Brookings Drive, Campus Box 1114, St. Louis, MO 63130, (6) Psychology, St. Louis University, Shannon Hall, Room 214, 3511 Laclede Ave., St. Louis, MO 63103, (7) School of Medicine, Siteman Cancer Center, Washington University, 660 S. Euclid, Box 8100, Saint Louis, MO 63110, (8) Department of English, Saint Louis University, 221 N. Grand Blvd., Saint Louis, MO 63103, (9) Community Health, Saint Louis University School of Public Health, Salus Center, 3545 Lafayette Ave., Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63104, (10) Health Communication Research Laboratory, Center for Cultural Cancer Communication, School of Public Health, Saint Louis Unversity, 3545 Lafayette Street, Salus Center, Saint Louis, MO 63104

Health communication is an important tool for helping eliminate cancer disparities. This interdisciplinary study examined effects of storytelling, a form of communication that has been integral to African American women's culture, as a strategy for increasing mammography. Drawing upon perspectives from public health, cultural anthropology, epistemology, psychology, communication, and persuasion, the study evaluates how experience-based personal narratives from breast cancer survivors may influence other women's knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors related to breast cancer and mammography. Stories from 49 African American women breast survivors or family members of survivors were elicited through qualitative interviews and professionally videotaped. Over 50 hours of videotape were systematically coded on 81 different themes in 10 breast cancer topic areas. Formative research among African American women viewing selected story units identified five attributes of effective stories: self disclosure, emotional expressiveness, integration of socio-cultural themes, vivid language, and personal strength. To verify the importance of these attributes and evaluate their impact on communication effectiveness, both formative and experimental studies examined African American women's reactions to stories that contained greater and lesser doses of each attribute. Findings from this interdisciplinary approach to cancer communication may be applied to enhance efforts to eliminate breast cancer disparities between African American women and other population sub-groups.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the presentation, the participant will be able to (
• describe an interdisciplinary theoretical rationale for applying storytelling in cancer communication for African American women; (
• understand a multi-stage approach to formative research in developing a narrative-based cancer communication intervention; and (
• identify five attributes of effective personal narratives and the conditions under which each is most influential.

Keywords: African American, Health Communications

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.