Culturally Appropriate Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Messages: Targeting Racially and Ethnically Diverse Mothers.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)-funded Breast Cancer and Environment Research Program (BCERP) provides evidence-informed educational materials targeting mothers with daughters to help them engage in lifestyle changes to reduce their environmental risk of breast cancer. Building on a partnership we developed to disseminate these materials via social media, we teamed with mommy bloggers and readers to evaluate the cultural appropriateness of the information using evidence-based practices for message design. We sought to (1) identify cross-culture factors that speak to a broad group of mothers and culture-specific factors to integrate when targeting specific cultures and (2) capture cultural challenges mothers encounter when they share the information with family to understand the social context in which they receive, interpret, and act on risk-reducing messages.