Response to Kreuter and Skinner.

I want to commend Matt Kreuter and Celette appropriately labeled ‘targeted’ interventions. Unfortunately, although we would now never call Skinner for their Editorial entitled ‘Tailoring: Clear Horizons a tailored program, in the evolution what’s in a name?’ (Kreuter and Skinner, 2000). of terminology, the titles of our papers stand. I could not agree more with their argument that I commend the authors’ attempts to encourage we need to agree on standard terminology with precision in our language. We must be able to regard to tailoring. In the past few months, particucommunicate not only with each other but also larly in my role as the leader of a large program with people who have little idea what behavioral at the National Cancer Institute, I have been struck interventions are in the first place. Imprecision is by the lack of consistency in behavioral science likely to confuse them further. One issue to resolve terminology. is the increasing use of the term ‘cultural tailoring’ In the basic sciences, a gene is a gene to everyone. when what is usually meant is more akin to cultural However, in our field, we would define gene differtargeting than tailoring. ently depending on who was measuring it. There While I might quibble over the wording Kreuter might be multiple definitions and they would proband Skinner have proposed (i.e. we need to allow ably evolve over time. It is time to discipline ourthe possibility that individual-level data are selves to strive for shared language, especially in obtained from sources other than the person him measurement but also in the descriptions of the types or herself, e.g. from the medical record), I suggest of interventions we use. Otherwise, it is very difficult that we endorse it in principle. In fact, I have been to communicate within and across disciplines and using this definition with minor modifications in to develop syntheses of our interventions. recent articles about tailored communications. Kreuter and Skinner’s suggestion comes at a Agreement upon tailoring and targeting terminopropitious time in the evolution of tailoring. When logy should be one step in a larger-scale effort to my colleagues and I developed the Clear Horizons insert more precision into our language. program in 1990 and referred to it as ‘tailored to older smokers’ (Rimer et al., 1994), we had no References reason to suspect how different tailored interventions would be from what now are more Kreuter, M. W. and Skinner, C. S. (2000) Tailoring, what’s in a name? Health Education Research, 15, 1–4. Rimer, B. K., Orleans, C. T., Cristinzio, S., Telepchak, J. and Keintz, M. K. (1994) Does tailoring matter? The impact of Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, a tailored guide on ratings and short-term smoking-related National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892-7338, outcomes for older smokers. Health Education Research, 9, 69–84. USA