Examining word association networks: A cross-country comparison of women's perceptions of HPV testing and vaccination

In this study, we examined the perceptual associations women hold with regard to cervical cancer testing and vaccination across two countries, the U.S. and Australia. In a large-scale online survey, we presented participants with 'trigger' words, and asked them to state sequentially other...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2017-10, Vol.12 (10), p.e0185669-e0185669
Main Authors: Schmid, Bernd C, Carlson, Jamie, Rezniczek, Günther A, Wyllie, Jessica, Jaaback, Kenneth, Vencovsky, Filip
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Analysis
Australia
Biology and life sciences
Cancer
Cancer diagnosis
Cancer prevention
Cancer screening
Cervical cancer
Cervix
Computer and Information Sciences
Dosage and administration
Female
Health aspects
Human papillomavirus
Humans
Immunization
Medical screening
Medicine and Health Sciences
Middle Aged
Papanicolaou Test
Papillomavirus Infections - diagnosis
Papillomavirus Infections - prevention & control
Papillomavirus Infections - psychology
Papillomavirus Vaccines - administration & dosage
People and Places
Public service
United States
Uterine Cervical Neoplasms - prevention & control
Vaccination
Women
Women's Health
Womens health
Young Adult
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Summary:In this study, we examined the perceptual associations women hold with regard to cervical cancer testing and vaccination across two countries, the U.S. and Australia. In a large-scale online survey, we presented participants with 'trigger' words, and asked them to state sequentially other words that came to mind. We used this data to construct detailed term co-occurrence network graphs, which we analyzed using basic topological ranking techniques. The results showed that women hold divergent perceptual associations regarding trigger words relating to cervical cancer screening tools, i.e. human papillomavirus (HPV) testing and vaccination, which indicate health knowledge deficiencies with non-HPV related associations emerging from the data. This result was found to be consistent across the country groups studied. Our findings are critical in optimizing consumer education and public service announcements to minimize misperceptions relating to HPV testing and vaccination in order to maximize adoption of cervical cancer prevention tools.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0185669