To encourage him, I would invoke our family (“Do it for the kids; they need you”), my own screening habits (“How would you feel if I didn’t get my annual mammogram?”), the data (he was a behavioral scientist, after all), the Katie Couric effect (a celebrity whom he liked and respected) and his risk factors (age, weight, diet).

Katie Couric, who lost her husband to colorectal cancer, had a colonoscopy on television that year, giving rise to what medical journals called the "Katie Couric effect": prompting patients to demand the test.

Today, researchers from the University of Michigan Health System at the Society of General Internal Medicine meeting in Atlanta reported that Couric’s campaign did have a substantial effect on the number of cancer screening tests. They call this finding the "Couric Effect".