This week, your goal is to discuss the power of communication in persuading behavior change. You will do this by developing a social marketing campaign strategy for a specific health problem and population. Follow the process outlined below;
- Choose a public health problem of interest to you.
Pre-diabetes
- Describe and define the status of this health problem using epidemiological data and biostatistics.
Eighty six million Americans have prediabetes – that is 1 In 3 adults, 9 out 10 of those with prediabetes don’t even know they have it.
Without intervention, 15 to 30% of people with prediabetes will develop type 2 diabetes within 5 years.
Prediabetes is a condition in which individuals have high blood glucose or high hemoglobin A1C levels, but not high enough to be classified as diabetes.
People with prediabetes have higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
In America today 29 million people have diabetes this epidemic has become one of the leading causes of death and disabilities in our country and cost 245 million dollars a year.
Diabetes can lead to heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney disease and amputations.
CDC (2014)
- Identify the population most affected by this health problem by using demographic data.
Prediabetes is affecting the adults: ages 20 and older but the most affected of those adults arethe 65 and older (one out of 2 or 51% of them has pre-diabetes).
The percentage of adults aged 20 and older with pre-diabetes was almost alike in Non Hispanic white, Non Hispanic black and Hispanics during the years 2009 to 2013. (CDC 2014)
- Visit the CDC webpage on health communication (see Additional Supplemental Materials) to locate the communications document on your target group. Review the document to learn what the CDC suggests in terms of tailoring your communications for this audience. Also ReviewTable 9-1in chapter 9 of theHealth Behavior Theorytextbook for guidance on attributes of effective health communication.
Based on this data and according to the CDC- Communication and Social Marketing (CSM)my target group are the boomers, the responsible generation, the young adults (all ethnicities) especially Caucasian, Latinos and African American.
The Boomersare not all alike; a 50 year old man can be a father a new grandfather or entrepreneurs. Some similarities between the boomers: working longer, maintaining youthfulness, health management, righting relationship, online activities and volunteering.
The top 5 traditional media in this age group aredoctor office, magazine, TV, website and newsletter. More than 65 of the 78 million baby boomers are online, older baby boomers tend to be more interested in news programs and shows on the lifetime cable network. An important health related behavior from the boomers is that half of those 55 to 64havehigh blood pressure and two en every 5 of them are obese.
Responsible generation (Aged 64 to 84)
Fifty five percent say they rely on TV to keep them informed (CDC n.d.), but in general prefer face to face communication.There are more women than men in this group, 50% are willing to pay anything when it concerns their health. 70% of them believe they have the power to change their lives.
The total amount of adults ages 65 to 85 years in 2006 were 31,964, of those 80% White, 9% black, 5% Hispanic and 3% Asian.
Young Adults
Young adults (Ages 10 to 29) are most likely to use social media, higher income and higher educated most likely to use social media, those with lower education are less likely to use social media.
In general, young adults lead the way in the internet/online use,twitter is also very popular in this group. African Americans are the most active user of mobile web (Pew Research Center PRC 2010)
Latinos are younger than the non Hispanic population (CDC n.d.). Hispanicshave higher risk of developing diabetes. (CDC 2014). For this reason a large amount of my target groups arethe Hispanic or Latinos, especially in Yakima where 47.7 percent are of from this group. (Yakima County profile 2014)
Radio and television are popular in the Latino community. Internet and face book are also popular in the Latino community. (CDC n.d.).
About 5 years ago we did an assessment in the Yakima Community to find out the most popular media vehicles in the community and we find out that the bulletin of the church was one of the most popular media vehiclesin the Latino community, followed by announcements at grocery stores, warehouses and laundry areas, this matches what DiClemente 2014 stated in his book. The message has to be delivered where the target group can access it.
- Propose a social marketing/ health communication strategy for this audience. Please address each of theFour P's of Social Marketingdiscussed in chapter 9 of theHealth Behavior Theorytextbook for guidance and structure. Make sure that you are also reflecting the attributes fromTable 9-1in your strategy.
I propose to start a bilingual Mega –Campaign call: Take action to Prevent Diabetes for your LIFE / Tome Accion para Prevenir la Diabetes por Su VIDA. This campaign is going to be from January to March, this is the time when many people become pre-contemplators thinking of their new year resolution, this is also the time where seasonal workers/Latinos and others agricultural workers are still off from work and are able to enroll in the Diabetes prevention program/classes, the classes are free of cost and in both languages and I will make them availableclose to where the people live, this will help diminish the psychosocial and social cost for the individual. By broadcasting the campaign during this month I will reach the largest possible number in my target population. My message has to be attractive to my target population and at the same time effective, starting with the name of my campaign.
Take action to Prevent Diabetes for your LIFE
Tome Acción para Prevenir la Diabetes por Su VIDA
Prediabetes is real and is here:Eighty six million American adults have prediabetes. This is 1 In 3 adults!.
People with prediabetes have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Without intervention, 15 to 30% of people with prediabetes will develop type 2 diabetes within 5 years.
Nine out 10 with prediabetes don’t know they have the condition. Are you one of them?
You have Prediabetes if you have higher than normal glucose levels. But not high enough for the diagnosis of diabetes. High levels of glucose can cause serious complications to your body.
The good news is that you have the power to stop prediabetes and prevent type 2 diabetes by eating healthy, keeping yourself active and losing weight.
Don’t let diabetes take control. Take action to prevent Diabetes now. Join the team!!
In my opinion this message is sensitive to the perception of my target population, for example for the responsible generation, is reinforcing their believein “power to change their lives”. For the boomers it is promoting a healthy lifestyle that promotes youthfulness and health management, and helps them prevent cardiovascular issues. Foryoung adults it will raise awareness about the benefits of adopting a healthier lifestyle to be diabetes free.This message will provide to the Latinos a resource to prevent a chronic condition. Since Latinos are usually more concerned about developing the disease than dying (CDC n.d). No matter what ethnicity the people have I have learned that the asymptomatic factor of the prediabetes may influence the individual to stayin the pre-contemplation stage without taking action. This message is using fear in moderation to increase awareness and at the same time is promoting self efficacy by providing the solution to prevent diabetes (cues to action).
To promote this Bilingual Mega-Campaign I will use the TV, magazine, news letter and the doctor office for the boomer group. I will visit the seniors center, clubs and churches for those responsible generation that prefers face to face promotion (less price and more available to this group), In my experience Latinos prefer face to face information too.Therefore I will use the same media vehicles for the Latinos as well; facebook and radio are also attractive to the Latino group.I will contact the pastor or religious representative of different congregations to do an announcement in their bulletin. I will displayannouncements in the grocery stores, laundry mat places (To make the message more available), facebook and radio are also very popular and well accepted in the Latino community, radio especially in rural areas (to reach more people). For the younger generation I will use all types of new media vehicles internet, instragram, twitter, facebook, my space. And finally if there is money available I will use the billboards. My campaign will reach more people, will be available for all, less expensive, bilingual and hopefully can match different stages of change.
References
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (CDC 2014). Infographic on Diabetes. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/socialmedia/infographics.html
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Cultural Insights Communicating with Hispanics /Latinos. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/pdf/audience/audienceinsight_culturalinsights.pdf
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (CDC n.d.) Audience Insights-communicating to the responsible generation (aged 64-84).
http://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/pdf/audience/audienceinsight_adult.pdf
Pew Research Center. (2010). Social Medial and Young Adults. Retrieved from
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). National Diabetes Statistics Report. Retrieved from:
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/statsreport14/national-diabetes-report-web.pdf
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2016). Diabetes National Diabetes Prevention Program. About Prediabetss and Type 2 Diabetes. retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/prevention/prediabetes-type2/index.html