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Michigan Center for Health Communications Research II
Investigator: Victor J. Strecher, University of Michigan

Website: http://chcr.umich.edu/

Extending message tailoring to new clinical and post-treatment settings based on multi-factorial design

Since 1995, the goal of the University of Michigan Center for Health Communications Research has been to create the future of tailored health communications, employing a systematic process of developing and evaluating population-based strategies tailored to specific needs and interests of the individual.

The overarching aims of our Center are to:

• Extend our tailoring research beyond prevention to the broader cancer care continuum and to new clinical and post-treatment settings;
• Deepen our understanding of key psychosocial and communications components including motivation, ethnic identity, risk perception, and cognitive processing;
• Explore methods of tailoring to patient preferences for shared decision making;
• Develop new social and cognitive neuroscience strategies for identifying immediate impact and mechanisms of health communications messages;
• Develop new interdisciplinary collaborations with scientists and research institutions;
• Train a new generation of health communications scientists and practitioners; and
• Disseminate both the scientific and practical results of our research efforts, enabling the adoption, adaptation, and creation of effective individually tailored cancer communication interventions by researchers, practitioners, and clinicians.

Research project summaries:

• Statewide Web-Based Cessation Program: Evaluating Media and Cessation Components, (Victor Strecher, PI), improves two aspects of population-based smoking cessation programming: through a media campaign encouraging use of a cessation program and efficacy through a web-based smoking cessation intervention. This project consists of two linked randomized trials. In the Media and Cessation Components, media message factors and enhancements will be developed and tested. The state of New York will fund a media campaign designed to encourage enrollment in the web-based cessation intervention. This project will evaluate, understand, and imptove integrated media and web-based smoking cessation intervention components that could be distributed at modest cost to other states and countries.



• Increasing Colorectal Cancer Screening (CRC) in African Americans: Tailoring and Motivational Interviewing, (Ken Resnicow, PI), tests three increasingly intensive interventions to increase CRC screening among African American members of Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) in Michigan. The randomized trial will include three groups: basic tailoring, enhanced tailoring and enhanced tailoring plus motivational interviewing. Throughout the study, the investigators will work with the clinical, cultural competence and administrative leadership at HFHS to maximize the likelihood of adoption by HFHS and other health systems should the tailored programs be found effective.



• Promoting Shared Decision Making Through a Tailored Decision Aid, (Peter Ubel & Angela Fagerlin, PIs), tests methods for increasing patients' salience of their preferences for a prostate cancer treatment and for improving the concordance between their desires for shared decision making and the type of participation they experience using a two phase approach.

For full descriptions: Michigan Overview December 2008