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An analysis of low-income Caucasian, Black and Hispanic women's responses to Project: Aware, a two-year televised informational campaign about breast cancer
Abstract
American Cancer Society(ACS) of Greater Boston in partnership with CVS Pharmaceuticals, Mobile Diagnostics and WHDH-TV developed Project:AWARE which offered breast cancer information and free mammograms for over two years in the Greater Boston area. This program was designed to reach low income and/or minority women. In this study the intended audience for Project:AWARE was studied in order to determine if the messages reached them. Forty Hispanic, forty Black and forty Caucasian women thirty-five years of age or older who live in Boston Housing Authority developments were interviewed. An interviewer, using a questionnaire, requested information about the participants' knowledge of breast cancer, knowledge of Project:Aware, and television viewing habits in order to determine if they had seen any part of this extensive television campaign and if it convinced them to get a mammogram. After two documentaries, over 1500 airings of Public Service Announcements(PSA's), ten locally produced programs and numerous ten-second calendar spots, ten-percent of the sample remembered seeing a Project:AWARE message on television while a similar number remembered seeing a poster about Project:AWARE. Only one women reported that seeing information about Project:AWARE convinced her to get a mammogram. Further testing will have to be done by health care professionals in order to insure that health information campaigns are reaching all segments of society. Large audiences for television programs are no indication that everyone in a community is receiving the message. Additional funds will have to be found in order to insure that messages are placed when and where they will be seen by low income and/or minority women of all ethnic backgrounds in order to insure that they have the same opportunities for good health care as other segments of society.
Subject Area
Health education|Mass communications|Public policy|Public health
Recommended Citation
Lacoy, Jacqueline, "An analysis of low-income Caucasian, Black and Hispanic women's responses to Project: Aware, a two-year televised informational campaign about breast cancer" (1994). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9420644.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9420644