ArticleEnvironmental health and preventive medicine2026
Health information sources and behaviour changes in a community population: a longitudinal study.
Article in Environmental health and preventive medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAccessible and trustworthy health information sources support informed decisions. Longitudinal evidence on how health information sources influence behavioural changes in community-dwelling populations remains limited. Thus, we examined associations between health information sources and behaviour changes in walking time, balanced meal consumption, and smoking cessation.
methodsBaseline (2021) and follow-up (2023) survey questionnaires were distributed to residents randomly selected from the 18 residential areas. Health information sources were classified into five categories: print media, television (TV) and radio, the Internet, family and friends, and professionals. Desirable health behaviours were defined as walking for ≥60 min/day; consuming ≥2 meals per day comprising staple grains, main dishes, and side items (SMS); and smoking cessation. Meeting these criteria was classified as good; not meeting them as poor. Improvement was defined as poor at baseline and good at follow-up. Maintenance was defined as good at both surveys. Improvement analyses included participants with poor baseline conditions. Maintenance analyses included those with good baseline conditions. Associations were analysed using multilevel modified Poisson regression models, accounting for clustering within residential areas and adjusting for covariates. Risk ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated.
resultsOf the 12 119 baseline participants, 6620 (54.6%) completed the follow-up. The most common health information sources were TV and radio (68.5%), the Internet (56.8%), and print media (48.9%). Use of family and friends as information sources was associated with improvement in walking time (RR: 1.19; 95% CI: 1.02-1.39), as was use of professionals (RR: 1.15; 95% CI: 1.03-1.28). Professionals showed a marginal association with sustained walking time (RR: 1.07; 95% CI: 0.99-1.15). TV and radio was associated with improvement in SMS meal consumption (RR: 1.13; 95% CI: 1.02-1.26), while print media was associated with maintenance of SMS meal consumption (RR: 1.05; 95% CI: 1.01-1.08). No sources were related to smoking cessation.
conclusionsHealth information sources showed distinct associations with improved and maintained health behaviours. Interpersonal sources were relevant for improving walking time, while mass media were linked to dietary improvement and maintenance. These findings suggest tailoring health communication strategies to specific health behaviours.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.