About the Project
Rationale: Understanding and measuring how people receive and perceive tobacco-related messages, both pro- and anti-tobacco, is essential to develop interventions that de-legitimize and de-normalize tobacco use. The changing media environment, the changing ethnic and racial landscape of the nation, and the continuing disparities in tobacco use warrant a precise measure of how people from low socioeconomic and minority racial/ethnic groups are exposed to tobacco messages.
Purpose: In 2006, TReND launched its first primary data collection project. The Tobacco-Related Messages and Media (TeRMM) project is a multi-site collaborative of four National Cancer Institute Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities Community Network Programs (CNPs), the Tobacco Research Network on Disparities (TReND), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the American Legacy Foundation. The purpose is to develop and validate an index to measure exposure to tobacco-related messages and media that is sensitive to the media consumption patterns of various racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. The project involves a four-phase approach to develop an exposure to tobacco-related media and messages (TeRMM) index.
- Phase 1: Conduct focus groups with a diverse range of participants drawn from four communities (American Indians, Hispanic/Latinos, urban blue-collar African Americans and blue-collar Whites) to explore media use, message exposure, and information-seeking behaviors of the audience for tobacco-related messages and media.
- Phase 2: Develop a battery of items to measure exposure that will constitute the TeRMM index and conduct cognitive testing of these items.
- Phase 3: Test the TeRMM index in a national survey to establish its reliability and validity among various sociodemographic groups.
- Phase 4: Disseminate the items to the field of tobacco control researchers and practitioners for future use.
Impact: Once validated, the TeRMM index will be published and made available for use by tobacco control researchers. This project will contribute to our knowledge on information seeking behaviors among low socioeconomic and minority racial/ethnic groups, provide a tool that other researchers can use to better understand media exposure among specific groups, and inform the development of interventions that de-normalize tobacco use for low socioeconomic and minority racial/ethnic groups.
Research Team
K. Vish Viswanath, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator)
Harvard School of Public Health
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Laura Beebe, Ph.D., M.P.H. (Principal Investigator)
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
Eliseo Perez-Stables, M.D. (Principal Investigator)
University of California, San Francisco
Donna Vallone, Ph.D., M.P.H. (Principal Investigator)
American Legacy Foundation
Co-Investigators:
Anna Napoles-Springer, Ph.D.
Redes En Acción: National Latino Cancer Research Network
University of California, San Francisco
Sherrie Wallington, Ph.D.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Project Staff:
Josephine Crisostomo, M.P.H. (Project Director)
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Contact Us
Principal Investigator:
K. Vish Viswanath, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Society, Human Development and Health
Harvard School of Public Health
Department of Medical Oncology
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
vish_viswanath@dfci.harvard.edu
Project Director:
Josephine Crisostomo, M.P.H.
Center for Community-Based Research
Department of Medical Oncology
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
josephine_crisostomo@dfci.harvard.edu
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