Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Feb 11;56(2):205-211.
doi: 10.1093/abm/kaab042.

Information Avoidance, Self-affirmation, and Intentions to Receive Genomic Sequencing Results Among Members of an African Descent Cohort

Emily B Peterson  1 , Jennifer M Taber  2 , William M P Klein  1   3
Affiliations

Information Avoidance, Self-affirmation, and Intentions to Receive Genomic Sequencing Results Among Members of an African Descent Cohort

Emily B Peterson et al. Ann Behav Med. .

Abstract

Background: Information avoidance tendencies have been found to be associated with lower intentions to pursue medically actionable genomic sequencing results, but less so among individuals who engage more in spontaneous self-affirmation. Yet these results were obtained with a largely non-Hispanic White, high-SES cohort.

Purpose: To assess these variables, their magnitude, and their associations in an African-descent cohort as part of the same ClinSeq® exome sequencing program.

Methods: Participants reported levels of spontaneous self-affirmation, information avoidance, and intentions to receive three types of results - medically actionable, non-medically actionable, and carrier status as part of a baseline survey.

Results: Relative to the original, non-Hispanic White cohort, those in the African-descent cohort had higher levels of spontaneous self-affirmation and lower intentions of learning about carrier genomic results; they reported comparable levels of information avoidance and intentions to receive other results. Information avoidance was negatively associated with intention to receive non-actionable results in the African-descent cohort, as found in the initial cohort, with no moderating effect of spontaneous self-affirmation. Information avoidance, spontaneous self-affirmation, and their interaction were not associated with intentions to receive actionable results (contrary to findings in the initial cohort), or carrier results.

Conclusions: Individuals of African descent may engage in relatively more spontaneous self-affirmation, and do not appear to engage in more information avoidance. Their information avoidance tendencies were associated with pursuit of non-actionable sequencing results, with no moderating effect of self-affirmation, and were not associated with pursuit of actionable results or carrier results.

Keywords: Genome sequencing; Information avoidance; Racial disparities; Spontaneous self-affirmation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Carpenter MJ, Strange C, Jones Y, et al. Does genetic testing result in behavioral health change? Changes in smoking behavior following testing for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. Ann Behav Med. 2007;33:22–28. - PubMed
    1. Armstrong K, Micco E, Carney A, Stopfer J, Putt M. Racial differences in the use of BRCA1/2 testing among women with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer. JAMA. 2005;293:1729–1736. - PubMed
    1. Aspinwall LG, Taber JM, Kohlmann W, Leachman SA. Psychological aspects of hereditary cancer risk counseling and genetic testing. In Carr B, Steel J, eds. Psychological Aspects of Cancer. Boston: Springer; 2013;31–64.
    1. Landry LG, Ali N, Williams DR, Rehm HL, Bonham VL. Lack of diversity in genomic databases is a barrier to translating precision medicine research into practice. Health Aff (Millwood). 2018;37:780–785. - PubMed
    1. Kaphingst KA, Peterson E, Zhao J, et al. Cancer communication research in the era of genomics and precision medicine: a scoping review. Genet Med. 2019;21:1691–1698. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types