Grant: Operating Grant

More Canadian women die of heart disease than breast cancer yet most women believe the opposite to be true. Women are also more scared of breast cancer than they are of heart disease, yet feel they have little control over whether they will develop breast cancer or not. The Red Dress campaign was developed to try to raise awareness of heart disease risk in women, but it has not reached as many women as the Pink Ribbon campaign for breast cancer. It is therefore possible that the Pink Ribbon campaign has a more powerful effect on women and results in greater perceived risk of breast cancer than heart disease. This research will investigate how these two campaigns are represented in the media. We will also investigate how the two campaigns influence women from various socioeconomic, education, and cultural groups. We will use surveys and experiments to test the hypotheses that the Pink Ribbon campaign, which has greater exposure and reach through corporate endorsements, influences not only perceptions of breast cancer but indirectly influences risk perception of heart disease. The experiments will test how health messages are processed outside of our conscious awareness. This is important to do because our gut reactions to media can guide behaviour, even if we are not necessarily aware that they are doing so. This research will help inform health promotion efforts. The results will be of interest to both researchers and practitioners who work to prevent heart disease in Canada and who attempt to increase behaviours such as physical activity that have been shown to help prevent both heart disease and breast cancer.