While preventive health exams are one of the most important healthcare tools and the main focus of health promotion campaigns around the world, individuals’ responses to such campaigns tend to show disparities among different cultural groups. Noting...
While preventive health exams are one of the most important healthcare tools and the main focus of health promotion campaigns around the world, individuals’ responses to such campaigns tend to show disparities among different cultural groups. Noting the significantly lower rate of getting preventive gynecological exams among Asian women, this study examined message-culture congruency effects in the context of a health advertising campaign for preventive gynecological exams targeting Asian women. The experimental results revealed interesting contrast effects of a culturally incongruent message among young Asian women: the culturally incongruent message generated significantly lower message-related cognitive responses and lower behavioral intention. Such effects were not observed among European Americans. The findings contribute not only to the growing research stream on advertising message-culture congruency effects, but also to health communication research and campaign development, especially targeting medically underserved cultural groups.