Digital Communication Strategies for Culinary Medicine in Cancer Prevention and Survivorship: Information-Seeking Habits and Content Preferences of Online Cooking Media Among Adults Participating in Four Cancer Prevention and Control Cohort Studies

IntroductionPoor diet and excess weight have been linked to increased risk for at least 13 types of cancer. Culinary medicine utilizes experiential cooking skill development to improve individuals' capacity for healthy eating. Digital communication strategies offer pathways for scalable culinary medicine interventions, but little research has explored how online cooking tools could be leveraged for cancer prevention messaging. We conducted a cross-sectional survey study exploring online cooking information-seeking habits and content preferences among participants in four cancer prevention and control cohorts to inform future digital culinary medicine interventions.MethodsA cross-sectional survey study was conducted with a convenience sample of participants from four existing cohort studies being undertaken at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Survey items examined current cooking practices, online cooking information-seeking behavior, digital intervention content preferences, and evaluation of three online cooking videos. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize findings, and open text comments were examined using rapid thematic analysis to add further context.ResultsMost of the 102 respondents were women (99%), with a mean age of 58 years old. Many (78.4%) reported preparing meals at home ≥4 days per week. Search engines were the most common way recipes were identified online and the majority of respondents reported cooking from online videos some or all of the time. Participants gave the highest overall ratings to the 2-4 minute cooking video and highlighted the host personality and video production as important aspects of online cooking video content.ConclusionsThe findings of this study offer insight to inform the development of digital culinary medicine tools for MD Anderson's cancer prevention and control cohorts.