Among minority populations, racial and ethnic disparities have long marred the dissemination of health information and the availability, delivery, and quality of care. Despite recent efforts to reduce such glaring inequalities, their implications for community health, particularly in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, remain on forefront of community health intervention research. This issue is exemplified by incidences of breast cancer among African American women in the United States. Data from the American Cancer Society (2015) reveal that non-Hispanic White women are diagnosed with breast cancer at a rate of 128.1 women per 100,000 of the population. However, African American women are diagnosed at a rate of 124.3 per 100,000. African
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Past health interventions have effectively utilized Petty & Cacioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model (1986) as a framework for disseminating health messages (Holt, Lee, & Wright, 2008; Holt et al., 2011; Price et al., 2011). The Elaboration Likelihood Model proposes that incoming communication messages are processed in two primary ways: the Central and Peripheral Processing Routes. The Central Processing Route necessitates careful consideration of information pertaining to the attitude object and its relationship to knowledge stored in memory (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Conversely, the Peripheral Processing Route is reliant on heuristic cues when processing messages. When messages are processed Peripherally, they require less conscious attention and create attitudes and behaviors that are susceptible to psychological reactance and counter-arguing. As the Central Route requires both the ability and motivation to process messages, information processed centrally is less susceptible to psychological reactance and counter-arguing and leads to lasting attitude and behavior change (Kreuter & Wray, …show more content…
To achieve this, message tailoring and targeting can be used to generate communication messages likely to be processed by the Central Processing Route. Message tailoring utilizes previously identified information (such as a person’s name or date of birth) to appeal to a specific individual. Message targeting is intended to reach a population subgroup by appealing to characteristics typically shared by members of that subgroup (Krueter & Wray, 2003). Although targeted messages are applicable to fewer people (in contrast to a tailored message, to which the message recipient’s personal information could easily be added), research has found that when targeted messages appropriately fit the recipient the message effects are compatible with those of tailored messages (Schmid et al., 2008). This finding is particularly relevant for message outcomes that have a variety of possible determinants (Kreuter & Wray, 2008; Kreuter & McClure,
Past health interventions have effectively utilized Petty & Cacioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model (1986) as a framework for disseminating health messages (Holt, Lee, & Wright, 2008; Holt et al., 2011; Price et al., 2011). The Elaboration Likelihood Model proposes that incoming communication messages are processed in two primary ways: the Central and Peripheral Processing Routes. The Central Processing Route necessitates careful consideration of information pertaining to the attitude object and its relationship to knowledge stored in memory (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Conversely, the Peripheral Processing Route is reliant on heuristic cues when processing messages. When messages are processed Peripherally, they require less conscious attention and create attitudes and behaviors that are susceptible to psychological reactance and counter-arguing. As the Central Route requires both the ability and motivation to process messages, information processed centrally is less susceptible to psychological reactance and counter-arguing and leads to lasting attitude and behavior change (Kreuter & Wray, …show more content…
To achieve this, message tailoring and targeting can be used to generate communication messages likely to be processed by the Central Processing Route. Message tailoring utilizes previously identified information (such as a person’s name or date of birth) to appeal to a specific individual. Message targeting is intended to reach a population subgroup by appealing to characteristics typically shared by members of that subgroup (Krueter & Wray, 2003). Although targeted messages are applicable to fewer people (in contrast to a tailored message, to which the message recipient’s personal information could easily be added), research has found that when targeted messages appropriately fit the recipient the message effects are compatible with those of tailored messages (Schmid et al., 2008). This finding is particularly relevant for message outcomes that have a variety of possible determinants (Kreuter & Wray, 2008; Kreuter & McClure,