Research Projects

The Viswanath Lab is involved in a series of research projects focused on mass media and health disparities in the context of cancer prevention.

Active Projects

Click to Connect Study (C2C)
The goal of the C2C project is to track household computer use in order to better understand how people from lower income and educational groups use the Internet in seeking health information. The C2C research team will then examine how health knowledge, behaviors, Internet usage patterns and computer skills change over time as participants gain experience and receive computer training.

Developing Measures of Exposure to Tobacco–Related Messages and Media (TeRMM)
Often the health effects of public communication campaigns rely on a series of concatenating assumptions including that the audience member has (a) come in contact with the message AND the medium in which the message has been placed, (b) attended to the message, and (c) has reacted to the message so as to change one’s knowledge, opinion, attitudes and behaviors.  Yet, the use of current measures are fraught with difficulty, thus this project will develop and validate a set of “media/message” exposure measures that could be used widely when measuring tobacco-related message exposure, especially among audience that use “minority” oriented media as well as those who may or may not have access to tobacco-related information because of poverty or other barriers.

Journalists and Health Communication
Our group is interested in studying the role of journalists in health communication. In a series of studies that include a national survey of health journalists and in-depth interviews with local and regional reporters, we are examining beliefs and the occupational practices of medical and health journalists, how they initiate, prioritize, research and develop medical science and health news stories and their training needs. We are also studying how and why journalists cover such topics as health disparities, sun protection and cancer prevention.

Well-Informed, Thriving, and Surviving (WITS) Study
We are exploring the information-seeking patterns of short- and long-term cancer patients and survivors. The specific aims of the project are: 1) to characterize information-seeking patterns of recently diagnosed cancer patients and survivors; 2) to explore whether there are differences in information seeking patterns among different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic status groups and how such differences may be related to disparities in cancer care and outcomes; and 3) to examine why some cancer patients seek or do not seek information and the barriers they face in seeking cancer information. Our recent analyses show that about 29% of cancer patients do not look for cancer information; 4) to identify information needs, sources and preferences of cancer patients; and 5) to characterize people acting as surrogates to seek information on behalf of cancer patients.

Completed Projects

Communication about Cancer and the Environment
Public perceptions of risk and vulnerability about cancer and environment are shaped by their exposure to communication messages either through intentional or incidental use.  This project addresses two main challenges: 1) how to communicate accurate risk information about cancer and the environment while taking into account the information environment that is competing and contradicting science-based information, and 2) how to overcome barriers faced by the underserved groups in accessing and using risk information about cancer. 

Communication Inequality
We are working with low-income residents of Boston to explore the ways in which individuals make decisions about the communication and information services. For example, what technologies are seen as absolutely necessary versus expendable luxuries? Emerging themes will help us understand the ways in which new media technologies are impacting the information and communication strategies of low-income Boston residents, so that we can better understand the types of communication and information inequalities that result.

Communicating Sun Protection
One approach to increasing awareness about skin cancer and sun protection is to raise the public profile of these issues in the community. A community-based mass media communication campaign to promote awareness about skin cancer and sun protection could potentially increase awareness, change behaviors, and increase support for sun protection policies in schools and other community institutions.

The goal of this project is to understand how parents, journalists, and community leaders think about sun protection and skin cancer through in-depth interviews with journalists and community leaders, and focus groups with parents. Building on what we learn, we will use the DFCI's communication lab to develop and test different communication messages that can increase the appeal of sun protection messages in local media. Messages that have been found to be effective may be shared with organizations such as SHADE, the American Cancer Society, and the Mass Melanoma Foundation, among others, who are engaged in the promotion of sun safety.