# Messaging Strategies to Reduce Breast Cancer Over-Screening in Older Women

> **NIH NIH R01** · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $518,260

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 Mammography screening may decrease breast cancer mortality and morbidity but the potential benefits
are often delayed for many years while significant harms can occur in the short term. While breast cancer
incidence increases with age, older women are also at higher risks for screening-related harms and burdens
compared to younger women. The harms of routine screening outweigh the benefits among older women with
limited life expectancies, but many of these women continue to be screened, highlighting the need for
interventions to promote appropriate screening cessation in order to reduce over-screening in older women.
Our prior research suggests that older adults are willing to stop routine cancer screening when recommended
by their clinicians. We also found that clinicians are increasingly willing to recommend that older patients forgo
screening when harms outweigh the benefits. However, patients at times receive contradictory messages from
their family, friends, or the news media which weaken the impact of the clinicians' recommendations and
contribute to over-screening.
 This project aims to examine how messages from clinicians, family and friends, and media, separately
and together, impact breast cancer screening intentions among older women, with the goal of identifying
messaging strategies that most effectively reduce breast cancer over-screening. We seek to accomplish this
goal through 3 aims. We will first establish which messages intended to reduce breast cancer over-screening
are considered most credible in a national online survey of 600 older women (Aim 1). Then, we will conduct a
two-wave online survey experiment with 3,000 older women to examine the combined effects of consistent and
conflicting messages from different sources—including clinicians, social relationships, and the news media —
on breast cancer screening beliefs, attitudes, and intentions over time (Aim 2). Lastly, we will conduct focus
groups with multi-disciplinary stakeholders to devise strategies to deliver the messages from Aim 2 that most
effectively reduced over-screening intentions (Aim 3).
 The proposed project will identify effective messaging strategies to promote appropriate screening
cessation and reduce over-screening for breast cancer in older women and engage stakeholders to inform
message dissemination. The results will directly inform a communication intervention as a next step to reduce
breast cancer over-screening among older women.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10206384
- **Project number:** 1R01AG066741-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Nancy Schoenborn
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $518,260
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-04-15 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10206384

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10206384, Messaging Strategies to Reduce Breast Cancer Over-Screening in Older Women (1R01AG066741-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10206384. Licensed CC0.

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