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Sarah E. Connor, MPH, CHES1, Lisa Kohl, AS2, Audrey Tatum, BA1, Sarah Joost, BA3, Daniel Robles2, Cheri Agonia, MPH4, and Mark S. Litwin, MD, MPH1. (1) Urology, University of California, Los Angeles, 650 Charles E. Young Drive South, Rm. CHS A2-125, Los Angeles, CA 90095, 310-794-6374, sconnor@mednet.ucla.edu, (2) IMPACT Program, 655 University Avenue, #210, Sacramento, CA 95825, (3) University of California, San Francisco, 1600 Divisadero Street, 6th Fl, #A624, San Francisco, CA 94143-1736, (4) University of California, San Diego, 350 Dickinson Street, Suite 442, San Diego, CA 92103-8897
Public health programs are confronted by many challenges when attempting to educate the public about their mission and services. Establishing trust, educating providers, educating potential program participants, and creating community partnerships, are but a few of the key challenges that must be met in order to ensure the success of a program. Examples from the IMPACT Program (Improving Access, Counseling and Treatment for Californians with Prostate Cancer), a statewide Program which provides free prostate cancer treatment to low-income, uninsured men, will be used to highlight these challenges and how a social marketing approach was used to resolve them. Through the application of commercial marketing and promotion techniques, the Program was able to identify and engage socioeconomically disadvantaged segments of the broader community and the health professional community serving low-income populations. The Program’s education efforts were informed by qualitative research (focus groups, intercept interview, etc.) to assist in identifying barriers to and facilitators of medical care seeking, optimal communication channels and venues, and trusted community settings for receipt of care. Culturally tailored, capacity-building and relationship-building approaches necessary in working effectively with disenfranchised communities of color were utilized. We will discuss efforts to raise the public’s awareness of the Program and techniques that were and were not successful. For example, despite targeted placement of Program advertisements, little response was received. Reasons for a low response to these advertisements may be related to lack of immediate need for Program services by men and a lack of general public awareness about the disease.
Learning Objectives:
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Handout (.doc format, 20.5 kb)