Since 1983, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has collected data by means of its Cancer Information Service (CIS), a toll-free telephone helpline for health care professionals and members of the public who have questions about cancer treatment, diagnosis, and prevention. These data reveal information about the characteristics of callers and their questions and about how inquiries reflect mass media promotions and secular trends. A request for a publication is the most common type of inquiry, followed by information about specific cancer sites, smoking prevention and cessation, other types of prevention, cancer treatment, cancer symptoms, referrals to physicians, NCI clinical trials, hospital and clinic-based screening programs, and general counseling or coping. Breast cancer is the most common cancer of interest, followed by respiratory system cancers, colon and prostate cancers, leukemia, melanoma, nonHodgkin's lymphoma, cervical cancer, general or unspecified skin cancer, and ovarian cancer. Responding to these other caller inquiries, CIS counselors may proactively guide callers to a desirable goal, such as screening mammography. Protocols have been developed to assist counselors' proactive efforts, and preliminary results are beginning to support this approach. The findings gathered in this study underscore the health education potential of telephone helplines and point to the need for controlled evaluation research on the effectiveness of proactive counselor advice.
Data from linked birth and death certificates from the State of Oregon were used to determine the monthly distribution of deaths from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) for the years 1976 through 1984. The monthly number of SIDS deaths increased in ...
This paper considers the financial burden of parents caring for severely disabled children. A model to predict parents' out-of-pocket expenses and caregiving time demands is described. Discriminant analysis correctly classified high and low group mem...
On June 13, 1991, President George Bush announced in a White House ceremony a local planning effort to break down barriers and provide better access to immunization in six representative localities "to solve the problem of late immunization." (childr...
An integrated approach to estimate the total number of pregnancies that begin in a population during one calendar year and the probability of spontaneous abortion is described. This includes an indirect estimate of the number of pregnancies that resu...
Total quality management (TQM) is a participative, systematic approach to planning and implementing a continuous organizational improvement process. Its approach is focused on satisfying customers' expectations, identifying problems, building commitm...
The researchers undertook to identify the factors that are most likely to influence children's intentions to use bicycle helmets. To determine the most important intention influencing factors, a random sample of 797 students in grades 4 through 6 com...
A comparative analysis was made of day of the week variations in homicide and suicide deaths among 15-24-year-old white males, black males, white females, and black females in the 22 counties with the most black persons in the United States. Thirty-s...
Brewster, M A; Kirby, R S; Feild, C R; Cunniff, C M;
Published Date:
1992 May-Jun
Source:
Public Health Rep. 107(3):290-296
Description:
Planning of service delivery systems for children with special health care needs would be enhanced by knowledge of numbers of cases anticipated in defined geographic areas. A method is described for predicting numbers of children who will likely have...
The researchers analyzed outcome data for 439 persons who had positive fecal occult blood tests in a 1984 statewide program for Connecticut residents. Among those with positive test results, colorectal cancer was diagnosed in 33 persons, 7.5 percent ...
Lando, H A; Johnson, K M; Graham-Tomasi, R P; McGovern, P G; Solberg, L;
Published Date:
1992 May-Jun
Source:
Public Health Rep. 107(3):340-344
Description:
Little is known about smoking patterns of urban American Indians and their interest in quitting. Most published research has focused upon American Indians who live on rural reservations. In this study, personal interviews were conducted with a conven...
There has been little effort directed at training health care professionals in behaviors and attitudes that are effective in communicating with persons with mental retardation. Such training would be beneficial not only to assist those with congenita...
Most addictions to tobacco begin when a person is younger than age 18. Although the sale of tobacco to minors is illegal in most jurisdictions, there is often little enforcement of these laws, and minors can usually purchase tobacco easily. The impac...
The Public Health Service's Interagency Committee to Improve Access to Immunization Services (ICI) has responsibility for improving the immunization protection of the nation's children and other vulnerable populations. ICI's Action Plan to Improve Ac...
Questions on awareness, use, and results of blood cholesterol tests were included in telephone surveys on cancer conducted in 1988 on random samples of persons 40-74 years of age in Long Island, NY (N = 440), and in Connecticut (N = 453). Educational...
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.). National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (U.S.), Office on Smoking and Health..
Published Date:
2004
Description:
"This document was prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the direction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, ...
BackgroundResearch is needed to understand parental factors influencing human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, particularly in groups with a higher burden of cervical cancer.PurposeTo determine correlates of HPV vaccination among a sample of low-inc...