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Background: Low awareness about palliative care among the global public and healthcare communities has been frequently cited as a persistent barrier to palliative care acceptance. Given that knowledge shapes attitudes and encourages receptiveness, it is critical to examine factors that influence the motivation to increase knowledge. Health information-seeking from individuals and media has been identified as a key factor, as the process of accessing and interpreting information to enhance knowledge has been shown to positively impact health behaviours. Objective: Our study aimed to uncover public sentiments toward palliative care in Singapore. A conceptual framework was additionally developed to investigate the relationship between information-seeking preferences and knowledge, attitudes, receptiveness of palliative care, and comfort in death discussion. Design and Methods: A nationwide survey was conducted in Singapore with 1226 respondents aged 21 years and above. The data were analysed through a series of hierarchical multiple regression to examine the hypothesised role of information-seeking sources as predictors. Results: Our findings revealed that 53% of our participants were aware of palliative care and about 48% were receptive to receiving the care for themselves. It further showed that while information-seeking from individuals and media increases knowledge, attitudes and receptiveness to palliative care, the comfort level in death conversations was found to be positively associated only with individuals, especially healthcare professionals. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the need for public health authorities to recognize people's deep-seated beliefs and superstitions surrounding the concept of mortality. As Asians view death as a taboo topic that is to be avoided at all costs, it is necessary to adopt multipronged communication programs to address those fears. It is only when the larger communicative environment is driven by the media to encourage public discourse, and concurrently supported by timely interventions to trigger crucial conversations on end-of-life issues between individuals, their loved ones, and the healthcare team, can we advance awareness and benefits of palliative care among the public in Singapore. Plain language summary: A nationwide survey to understand public sentiments and the extent that information-seeking preferences can increase knowledge, attitudes, receptiveness of palliative care, and comfort level in death discussion in Singapore Low awareness of palliative care is a barrier that persistently hinders palliative care acceptance among populations in developing and developed countries. As knowledge shapes attitudes and encourages receptiveness, it is vital that researchers uncover factors that influence the motivation to increase knowledge. Health information-seeking is a factor that deserves greater attention in palliative care research because the process of seeking out information on health concerns from other people or the media can greatly increase individuals' knowledge. As such, this nationwide survey involving 1226 participants was carried out in Singapore to understand the public sentiments toward palliative care. It further statistically analyzed if information-seeking (from individuals and the media) will increase knowledge, attitudes, receptiveness toward palliative care, and comfort level in death discussion. Our findings indicated that 53% of our participants were aware of palliative care and about 48% were receptive to receiving the care for themselves. Furthermore, while information-seeking from individuals and media increases knowledge, attitudes, and receptiveness to palliative care, people are only comfortable to engage in death discussion with individuals, especially healthcare professionals. Exposure to media alone is not enough to encourage individuals to want to talk about end-of-life issues including palliative care. As Asians view death as a taboo topic, it is important for public health authorities to recognize people's deep-seated beliefs and superstitions surrounding the concept of mortality. A multipronged communication program is therefore needed to address these fears. It is only when the larger communicative environment driven by the media to encourage public discourse, and concurrently supported by timely interventions to trigger crucial conversations on end-of-life issues between individuals, their loved ones, and the healthcare team, can we advance awareness and benefits of palliative care among the public in Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research purposes to examine the role of strategic communication, specifically the effectiveness of government's crisis communication messages at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, on disease preventive behaviors. It employed a mixed method research approach by first carrying out a content analysis of 7128 news headlines on COVID-19 to confirm our presupposition that the media may be communicating messages that the world order is being threatened. Informed by our findings that 90% of news reports were framed to suggest a dangerous world, we surveyed 453 respondents in the main study, and tested if people's beliefs in a dangerous world (BDW) were linked to their disease preventive behaviors (DPB), and whether such a link was modulated by how effective they perceived the government's pandemic communication. As predicted, results revealed that the perceived effectiveness of the government's pandemic communication trumped the effects of beliefs in a dangerous world such that the link between BDW and DPB was significant only when the perceived effectiveness was low. Further analysis of the effects of specific communication dimensions on disease preventive behaviors suggests that public health communication needs to be strategically calibrated to offer personally relevant messages that are informative and objective. (199 words) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite public programs to promote healthy eating among populations in developed and developing countries, the increase in obesity as a result of poor dietary patterns continues to persist. As food advertising has been implicated for contributing to this global health challenge, this study aims to provide empirical evidence on food advertising in a broader global context, across economically and culturally different nations. We conducted a large scale content analysis of the types of food advertised on primetime television in the United States, China, and Singapore, which resulted in the collection of 1,008 television hours. Using the dietary blue2376s proposed by the health authorities as the applied framework, the study compared the types of food advertised against the dietary parameters. Findings showed that despite differences in economic development and cultures, food advertised on primetime television across three countries are incongruent with dietary recommendations. The study offers insights on how misaligned and out of sync food advertising and commercial interests are from government health policies. Implications of findings to encourage healthy eating among populations worldwide are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]