Spirituality might help curb cancer

By Michael Sewall

Published Feb. 6, 2007

The more spiritual black women are, the more receptive they are to breast cancer information, according to a study conducted at MU.

The study looked into knowledge of breast cancer gained through media use, and how it could affect women's health behaviors.

"From a disease prevention perspective, there is a great need for accurate information to be effectively communicated to women about breast cancer and breast cancer screening," said Cynthia Frisby, an advertising professor in the School of Journalism.

Frisby led the study, along with a team of researchers, by calling 240 white women and 206 black women from 11 cities across the country. The cities included Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City and Houston.

The researchers investigated differences in knowledge level, as well as how much media use influences the level of breast cancer knowledge and health behaviors of the women in each group. Frisby also used education levels to further divide the groups into those that were highly educated and those that had lower levels of education.

Journalism professor Glenn Leshner said the education level was controlled and not an explanatory variable.

Higher media use led to more knowledge of breast cancer only for "highly educated" black women, Frisby found.

But increased media use did not translate into more highly educated black women getting breast cancer screenings. In addition, media use and breast cancer knowledge were not significant predictors of behaviors of black women, which Frisby said could be an indication that mass media messages about breast cancer could be too focused on white women.

Black women were found in the study to hold more spiritual beliefs toward their health and not pay as much attention to the media.

Frisby's study was funded through the MU Health Communication Research Center by a federal earmark from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention following a request by former Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo.

Frisby said the lack of breast cancer information in the media was part of the problem. She said things such as the Yoplait yogurt top advertisements, which ask consumers to donate to breast cancer research, make people think they can pay money and get the problem of breast cancer to go away.