FORCE’s eXamining the Relevance of Articles for Young Survivors (XRAYS) program is a reliable resource for breast cancer research-related news and information. XRAYS reviews new breast cancer research, provides plain-language summaries, and rates how the media covered the topic. XRAYS is funded by the CDC.
Learn more about the XRAYS program
FORCE developed the CDC-funded eXamining the Relevance of Articles for Young Survivors (XRAYS) program to empower young breast cancer survivors and young women at high risk for breast cancer by providing tools that they can use to evaluate reports of new breast cancer related research. XRAYS will provide reviews and ratings of news media articles on breast cancer research to help young breast cancer survivors and previvors better understand research that is relevant to them.
XRAYS is a reliable resource for breast cancer related news and information. The program will help people navigate and understand news on breast cancer research in the media to empower them to understand the research and make better decisions for their health and well-being.
The content that XRAYS releases is produced by the FORCE XRAYS Team which includes: Executive Director, Sue Friedman, DVM, Vice President of Education, Piri Welcsh, PhD, and Medha Sutliff, MS, Vice President of Marketing, Karen Kramer, and Vice President of Advocacy, Lisa Schlager. Dr. Welcsh, is the XRAYS Scientific Review Lead.
Our XRAYS Team decides on the media articles relevant to young breast cancer survivors and high-risk women from articles submitted to the team and those that have received significant attention and have stimulated discussion in the community and are important. Dr. Welcsh and Ms. Sutliff read the primary literature scientific literature. This literature is where scientists present their data and interpretations. They compare what was found in the original research and what the media article reported. Ms. Sutliff writes up a summary on the original research findings and use a rating rubric developed by our team to assign ratings to the research publication as well as media articles which covered the research (see below).
Every summary is reviewed by select members of the FORCE Scientific Advisory Board, which consists of active researchers and clinicians in the fields of cancer, genetics, surgery, behavioral health, policy, and survivorship. No summary is published without first receiving approval from one or more members of the advisory board.
Original research study articles will be rated on a scale of 1-15. These 15 points will be converted to a meter that ranges in scale from low, low/medium, medium, medium/high, to high.
5 points will be given to the overall research design accounting for:
5 points will be given to the analysis of the study accounting for:
The remaining 5 points will be awarded based on its relevance to Young Breast Cancer Survivors.
Media articles are rated on a 5 star rating scale.
To determine what rating the media article gets, XRAYS will look at whether the writing is accurate:
XRAYS will also take into account how well the article was executed:
Finally the rating will look at how scientifically accurate the media report is:
Any part of a story that does not meet these criteria will result in lost points on the rating.
Results from the FORCE XRAYS evaluation and survey of media use by young breast cancer survivors and young women at high risk for breast cancer have been presented at national conferences. Presentations include:
American Public Health Association National Meeting, November 2015: Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of the eXamining Relevance of Articles to Young Survivors (XRAYS) Program to Summarize Recent Research Findings for Young Breast Cancer Survivors: Findings from the First Year
San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, December 2015: XRAYS (eXamining Relevance of Articles to Young Survivors) Program Survey of Information Needs and Media Use by Young Breast Cancer Survivors and Young Women at High Risk for Breast Cancer
Yi RHP, Rezende LF, Huynh J, Kramer K, Cranmer M, Schlager L, Dearfield CT, Friedman SJ. XRAYS (eXamining Relevance of Articles to Young Survivors) Program Survey of Information Needs and Media Use by Young Breast Cancer Survivors and Young Women at High-Risk for Breast Cancer. Health Commun. 2017 Sep 28:1-6. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2017.1372051.
The FORCE XRAYS program thanks the members of our steering committee and our partner organizations Young Survival Coalition, Living Beyond Breast Cancer, Triple Step Toward the Cure, Tigerlily Foundation, and the Gulf States Young Breast Cancer Survivor Network for helping us establish and improve the XRAYS program.
This project was supported by the Cooperative Agreement Number, DP005404, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Department of Health and Human Services.