Are we getting the message out to all? Health information sources and ethnicity

Over 80% of the excess deaths in minority and economically disadvantaged populations are from diseases with preventable or controllable contributing factors. However, mainstream health education targeting behavior change often fails to reach minority populations.

To identify the health and cancer information sources used by a multi-ethnic population and to determine whether information sources differ by ethnic group, age, gender, and socioeconomic status.

A multilingual, random-digit dial telephone survey of 2,462 Hispanic (Colombian, Dominican, Ecuadorian, and Puerto Rican) and black (Caribbean, Haitian, and U.S.-born) persons, aged 18-80 years, from a population-based quota sample, New York City, 1992.

All ethnic and age groups cited a health professional as the most common source of health information (40% overall). The next most commonly cited sources overall were: television (21%), hospitals or doctor's offices (18%), books (17%), magazines (15%), brochures/pamphlets (11%), and radio (8%). Responses on sources of cancer information followed a similar pattern. Black subgroups were all significantly more likely than Hispanic subgroups to get their health information from a doctor or other health professional (p = 0.001). Use of the radio as a source of health information was highest among Haitians (20.8%) and Colombians (12.5%), and lowest among U.S.-born blacks (4.2%) (p = 0.001), but there was no difference in the use of television. Among immigrants, as the proportion of life spent in mainland U.S. rose, increasing percentages cited magazines (p = 0.001) and decreasing percentages cited radio (p = 0.025) as a health information source. Less educated persons and more recent immigrants were most likely to report inability to get health information (p = 0.001).

Given the variation in sources of health and cancer information, identification of those most commonly used is important to health educators' and public health practitioners' efforts to target hard-to-reach ethnic minorities.