Katie Couric effect
n. The increased interest in colon cancer screening following "Today Show" co-host Katie Couric's on-air colonoscopy.
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Examples
2014
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).
—Claudia Menashe, “Another reason to stop avoiding that colonoscopy,” The Washington Post, June 09, 2014
2013
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.
—Elizabeth Rosenthal, “The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill,” The New York Times, June 02, 2013
2002 (earliest)
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".
—“Study: Katie Couric wakes up America on colonoscopy screening” (PDF), University of Michigan, May 02, 2002