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Influence of Information Sources on Hepatitis B Screening Behavior and Relevant Psychosocial Factors Among Asian Immigrants

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Abstract

This study examines how different information sources relate to Health Belief Model constructs, hepatitis B virus (HBV) knowledge, and HBV screening. The Maryland Asian American Liver Cancer Education Program administered a survey of 877 Asian immigrants. The most common sources of information identified by the multiple-answer questions were newspapers (39.8 %), physicians (39.3 %), friends (33.8 %), TV (31.7 %), and the Internet (29.5 %). Path analyses—controlling for age, sex, educational level, English proficiency, proportion of life in U.S., health insurance coverage, and family history of HBV infection—showed that learning about HBV from physicians had the strongest direct effect; friends had a marginal indirect effect. Perceived risk, benefits, and severity played limited roles in mediation effects. Path analysis results differed by ethnicity. Physician-based HBV screening intervention would be effective, but should be complemented with community health campaigns through popular information sources for the uninsured.

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Notes

  1. Tables of ethnicity-specific analyses are not shown in the manuscript. They are available upon request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participants in the study. We appreciate our research assistants’ dedicated efforts to collect data from the participants. This study was supported by the National Cancer Institute, Award Number R25CA129042. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute or the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N. Broadway, Room # 708, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

    Miho Tanaka & Hee-Soon Juon

  2. Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, 128 Sec. 2 Academia Rd, Nankang, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan

    Carol Strong

  3. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Maryland School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Sunmin Lee

Authors
  1. Miho Tanaka
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  2. Carol Strong
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  3. Sunmin Lee
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  4. Hee-Soon Juon
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Correspondence to Miho Tanaka.

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Tanaka, M., Strong, C., Lee, S. et al. Influence of Information Sources on Hepatitis B Screening Behavior and Relevant Psychosocial Factors Among Asian Immigrants. J Immigrant Minority Health 15, 779–787 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-012-9753-9

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