Dissemination of information about the US Preventive Service Task Force guidelines

We assessed the familiarity of family physicians with the US Preventive Service Task Force guidelines and targeted groups for interventions to increase the practice of recommended preventive services. A national random sample of 480 family physicians were mailed a survey consisting of demographic items and a question regarding their level of exposure to the guidelines. The association of demographic factors with the level of exposure was assessed. Of the 263 responding physicians, 37% reported that they had not read any of the recommendations. Physicians who had read at least some of the recommendations were younger, more recently graduated from medical school, less likely to be in solo practice, more likely to be residency trained, and more likely to be white. Only year of graduation and race remained significantly associated with exposure to the guidelines in a logistic regression model. Additional dissemination efforts should focus on solo practitioners, less recent graduates, and nonwhite physicians.