Rationale, Procedures, and Response Rates for the 2015 Administration of NCI's Health Information National Trends...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Communication
• Survey Research

Background:

• The National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) to track cancer communication trends.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) partnered with NCI to conduct HINTS-FDA 2015, utilizing HINTS as a data resource.

Purpose of the Study:

• To gather data on population trends in cancer communication, information preferences, health risk behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge.
• To inform FDA's health communication strategies, particularly concerning tobacco-related communications, public knowledge, and behaviors.

Main Methods:

• A self-administered paper survey (HINTS-FDA 2015) was mailed to a random probability-based sample of U.S. postal addresses.
• The sample was stratified by county-level smoking rates, oversampling high and medium-high smoking strata.
• Data collection occurred from May 29 to September 8, 2015, achieving a 33% response rate (N=3,738).

Main Results:

• The survey yielded 495 current smokers and 1,132 former smokers.
• While the yield of current smokers was lower than anticipated, the sampling strategy successfully increased the number of former smokers.
• Public-use data and documentation have been available since June 2016 for secondary analysis.

Conclusions:

• HINTS-FDA 2015 provides valuable data for health communication research.
• The findings support research on tobacco-related communications, public knowledge, and behaviors.
• Data can also inform research on beliefs and actions related to medical products and dietary supplements.