Targeting Versus Tailoring of Online INFORMATION: can Bowel Cancer Screening Decision Stage be Used to Predict an INDIVIDUAL’S Information Needs
I. Zajac1, I. Flight1, C. Wilson1
1Preventative Health Flagship, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Adelaide, Australia.
Background: Tailoring content is a way of improving health behaviours but it’s complex and not always effective. Targeting aims to present information to ‘groups’ of users. The present study investigates if bowel cancer screening decision-stage is a suitable variable for targeting techniques. Method: N=1,387 Participants completed a questionnaire assessing decision stage, as well as preferences for categories of information. Results: Decision stage predicted preferences for certain categories of information: individuals who had never heard of screening were twice as likely to preference ‘information about bowel cancer’ over ‘information about screening’ (OR=1.98), and more likely to preference ‘information about screening’ over ‘information about completing a screening test’ (OR=1.73). Demographics including age and sex were unrelated to preferences. Conclusions: This study suggests that individuals at different decision stages prefer to engage with different types of content. Thus, it might prove beneficial to use decision stage as a targeting variable when presenting web-based content.