The role of perceived benefits and costs in patients' medical decisions.

Background: Many decisions can be understood in terms of actors' valuations of benefits and costs. The article investigates whether this is also true of patient medical decision making. It aims to investigate (i) the importance patients attach to various reasons for and against nine medical decisions; (ii) how well the importance attached to benefits and costs predicts action or inaction; and (iii) how such valuations are related to decision confidence.

Race, ethnicity, and shared decision making for hyperlipidemia and hypertension treatment: the DECISIONS survey.

Background: Racial/ethnic differences in shared decision making about cardiovascular risk-reduction therapy could affect health disparities.

Objective: To investigate whether patient race/ethnicity is associated with experiences discussing cardiovascular risk-reduction therapy with health care providers.

Setting: National sample of US adults identified by random-digit dialing.

Decision-making processes for breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer screening: the DECISIONS survey.

Background: Patients should understand the risks and benefits of cancer screening in order to make informed screening decisions.

Objectives: To evaluate the extent of informed decision making in patient-provider discussions for colorectal (CRC), breast (BrCa), and prostate (PCa) cancer screening.

Setting: National sample of US adults identified by random-digit dialing.

The 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth: sample design and analysis of a continuous survey.

Objective: The National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) collects data on pregnancy, childbearing, men's and women's health, and parenting from a national sample of women and men 15-44 years of age in the United States. This report describes the sample design for the NSFG's new continuous design and the effects of that design on weighting and variance estimation procedures. A working knowledge of this information is important for researchers who wish to use the data.

The Effect of Question Framing and Response Options on the Relationship between Racial Attitudes and Beliefs about Genes as Causes of Behavior.

Prior research suggests that the attribution of individual and group differences to genetic causes is correlated with prejudiced attitudes toward minority groups. Our study suggests that these findings may be due to the wording of the questions and to the choice of response options. Using a series of vignettes in an online survey, we find a relationship between racial attitudes and genetic attributions when respondents are asked to make causal attributions of differences between racial groups.

Prostate cancer screening decisions: results from the National Survey of Medical Decisions (DECISIONS study).

Background: Guidelines recommend informing patients about the risks and benefits of prostate cancer screening. We evaluated the medical decision-making process for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing.

Methods: We conducted a telephone survey of a randomly selected national sample of 3010 English-speaking US adults 40 years and older.

Trends in U.S. Attitudes Toward Genetic Testing, 1990-2004.

This research note examines changes in beliefs and attitudes over a 14-year period, from 1990, when the revolution in genomic science was just beginning, to 2004, the most recent time point for which data are available. The analysis makes clear that there is no simple causal path from changes in technology to changes in values and beliefs, at least over the period of time during which we have been able to track this process. At the same time, claimed awareness about the new technology is slowly and gradually diffusing throughout the society.

National Survey of Family Growth, Cycle 6: sample design, weighting, imputation, and variance estimation.

Objectives: Cycle 6 of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) was conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics in 2002 and early 2003. This report describes how the sample was designed, shows response rates for various subgroups of men and women, describes how the sample weights were computed to make national estimates possible, shows how missing data were imputed for a limited set of key variables, and describes the proper ways to estimate sampling errors from the NSFG. The report includes both nontechnical summaries for readers who need only general information and more technical detail for readers who need an in-depth understanding of these topics.

Life-course socioeconomic position and hypertension in African American men: the Pitt County Study.

Objectives: We investigated the odds of hypertension for Black men in relationship to their socioeconomic position (SEP) in both childhood and adulthood.

Methods: On the basis of their parents' occupation, we classified 379 men in the Pitt County (North Carolina) Study into low and high childhood SEP. The men's own education, occupation, employment status, and home ownership status were used to classify them into low and high adulthood SEP.

Life-course socioeconomic position and obesity in African American Women: the Pitt County Study.

Objectives: We studied obesity in African American women in relationship to their socioeconomic position (SEP) in childhood and adulthood.

Methods: On the basis of parents' occupation, we classified 679 women in the Pitt County (North Carolina) Study into low and high childhood SEP. Women's education, occupation, employment status, and home ownership were used to classify them into low and high adulthood SEP.

Racial and ethnic variations in knowledge and attitudes about genetic testing.

This study was designed to shed light on whether differences in utilization of genetic testing by African-Americans, Latinos, and non-Hispanic Whites are due primarily to different preferences, or whether they instead reflect other values and beliefs or differential access. It explores the values, attitudes, and beliefs of African-Americans, Latinos, and non-Hispanic Whites with respect to genetic testing by means of a telephone survey of representative samples of these three groups. The study finds clear evidence that Latinos and African-Americans are, if anything, more likely to express preferences for both prenatal and adult genetic testing than White respondents.