This project aims to create a channel for the Michigan Interactive Health Kiosk Project on prostate cancer symptoms, testing, and treatment options.

prostate cancer, cancer prevention, screening, expert tailored, user tailored

1. Develop a health channel for the kiosk that focuses on prostate cancer screening.
2. Include the channel in all of the kiosks through the state of Michigan.
   

Residents throughout the State of Michigan.

Being developed as part of the Michigan Interactive Health Kiosk Demonstration Project, this health channel will include:

• Detailed information about the prostate and associated health risks
• A discussion on the complex decision making about testing and treatment related to prostate cancer.
• An interactive personal risk assessment.

An additional obstacle this project will face is that of content approval. This channel will include necessary text and graphics referring to male genitalia. Because the public would have unrestricted access to the kiosk channels, the funding source for the project will be intimately involved in the final approved content deemed critical to the channel.

Focus groups, intercept interviews, and usability testing were completed for all of the channels before final dissemination into the kiosks. Feedback was reviewed and improvements, clarifications, and updates were implemented into each channel as appropriate.

After dissemination, findings for all channels provided in the kiosk include:

• Pilot assessments of all kiosk users showed that over 400,000 individuals use the kiosks each year.
• When comparing users with the population exposed to the kiosks, we find that kiosk users tend to be younger (over 50% of users are under 21 years of age). Users do not, however, differ from nonusers by ethnic or gender status.
• Because of the ethnic compositions where the kiosks are placed, over 50% of kiosk users are nonwhite. Satisfaction levels with the kiosks do not differ by ethnic status or by gender.
• Kiosk users report that the information provided is useful and easy to understand.
• Users rate information from the kiosk as equally as or more trustworthy than information received from physicians or television news shows.
• The vast majority of users enjoyed using the HOV modules and thought they were easy to use.

The Michigan Interactive Health Kiosk Project is one example of how interactive multimedia technology can be made available to a broader spectrum of the public. The data suggests that interactive multimedia would be used by the public most in need of preventive services - those who do not have ready access to computers.

Strecher, V. J., Greenwood, T., Wang, C., & Dumont, D. (1999). Interactive multimedia and risk communication. Journal of the National Cancer Institute Monographs, 25, 134-139.

Strecher, V. J. (1999). Michigan Interactive Health Kiosk Demonstration Project: Annual Report. Prepared for the Michigan Department of Community Health.

Strecher, V. J. (1998). Michigan Interactive Health Kiosk Demonstration Project: Annual Report. Prepared for the Michigan Department of Community Health.