Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Oct 27, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 27, 2025 - Dec 22, 2025
Date Accepted: Apr 15, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Harnessing neighbourhood food and beauty establishments for health communications: a cross-sectional study on the determinants of willingness to receive health information from non-healthcare services
ABSTRACT
Background:
While healthcare providers are the most trusted sources of health information, service establishments within communities represent important yet underutilized sources of health information. Specifically, food and beauty establishments can act as alternative settings for health communication, facilitating broader engagement with the general population.
Objective:
This study examined factors associated with willingness to receive health information from these non-healthcare services among community-dwelling adults in Singapore.
Methods:
A cross-sectional survey was conducted among residents in two neighbourhoods in Central Singapore between November 2024 and April 2025. Data on socio-demographics, trust in information from healthcare and non-healthcare sources, and willingness to receive health information were collected anonymously. Multivariable logistic regression identified factors independently associated with willingness to receive health information from non-healthcare sources.
Results:
Most of the 403 respondents were aged ≥50 years (55.3%), female (54.3%), Chinese (82.6%), and higher educated (74.9%). Of the 339 respondents with no prior exposure to health information from non-healthcare services, nearly one-in-three (31.3%) reported that they were willing to receive health information from these sources. In adjusted analysis, those who trusted health information (AOR 3.71 [95% CI: 1.50, 9.19]) and those with high health information orientation (AOR1.89 [95% CI: 1.11, 3.21]) were more willing to receive health information from non-healthcare services in the future. Trust in health information increased willingness among those aged 21-34 years (AOR 4.98 [95% CI: 1.35, 18.30]), those aged 35-49 years (AOR 8.02 [95% CI: 2.62, 24.59]), and males (AOR 6.22 [95% CI: 2.79, 3.89]) to receive health information from these sources, but not among those aged ≥50 years (AOR 1.92 [95% CI: 0.92, 4.02]) or females (AOR 1.85 [95% CI: 0.87, 3.96]).
Conclusions:
Nearly a third of community-dwelling adults expressed willingness to receive health information from non-healthcare services, highlighting the potential for leveraging these channels in health communication. Higher level of willingness was positively associated with higher health information orientation and greater trust. Additionally, trust in non-healthcare services enhanced the willingness among those aged 21-49 years and males. Building age- and gender-sensitive trust strategies could strengthen engagement through non-healthcare channels.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.