In the first Annenberg Research Seminar of 2012, Gary Kreps (Ph.D. Communication '79), director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication at George Mason University, discussed his research on “Health Information Seeking Behavior of Korean American Immigrants: Implications for Communication Intervention and Cancer Control.” His research aims to utilize health communication to reduce health risks, disease incidents, mortality and improve quality of life. Kreps said that appropriate communication is critical in distributing useful information to the public. “Communication cuts across the continuum of care: early detection, prevention, and treatment. All the work I do cuts across all those domains,” Kreps said. The research he conducted, mostly in the form of interviews and surveys, discovered that Korean Americans have poor access to cancer information and low cancer screening rates which lead to late-stage diagnosis. He also discovered that most respondents to his surveys did not speak English, although most had resided in the United States for more than 25 percent of their lives. “Most people lived in areas where they didn’t need to learn to speak English, but all the cancer information was in English, so it was inaccessible to them,” Kreps said. His research shows that there is limited information provided by Korean media. There is also a low awareness among the community about cancer information sources. Kreps hopes to encourage the second and third generation of Korean-Americans to aid in the process of cancer awareness because they do not have a language barrier with the information. “We are trying to get the Korean youth to serve as better advocates for their parents and grandparents because they are much more savvy in the culture and the language,” Kreps said. He said he hopes his research will allow them to develop intervention strategies and create multi-channel and culturally sensitive Korean cancer information programs.