Who are you going to believe?

Believability is a perennial issue in health promotion. Multiyear data (2000-2009) from 26,642 students (66% female; 72% Caucasian) in nine universities administering the American College Health Association's National College Health Assessment (ACHA-NCHA) is used to investigate patterns of believability. Respondents rate the believability of health information from thirteen sources. Using a combination of believability/unbelievability percents, factor analysis with a Varimax rotation and multidimensional scaling, four categories are identifiable. The very high believability category includes medical staff and health educators. The high believability category includes parents, faculty and leaflets/pamplets/flyers. The moderate believability category includes the campus newspaper, peer educators and Resident Advisors. The lowest believability category includes friends, internet, magazines and religious centers. TV is in a category by itself as more unbelievable than believable. In a multinomial logistic regression, after controlling for demographic differences across the years, the only significant changes in believability were a 12% decrease in the believability of religious centers (X2=90.23, df=1, p<.001), 5% decreases in the believability of TV (X2=11.81, df=1, p=.001) and magazines (X2=14.43, df=1, p<.001) and a 15% increase in the believability of the internet (X2=96.83, df=1, p<.001). The good news is that health educators have the same high believability as medical staff. The concerning news is the moderate believability of peer educators and Resident Advisors and the increasing believability of the internet. This presentation will include audience discussion of the implications of these findings for health promotion on college campuses.