Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #112806

Peter D. Rumm, MD, MPH, Community Health and Prevention, Drexel University School of Public Health, Director, Center for Public Health Readiness and Communication, 1505 Race St., Philidelphia, PA 19102, 2157621652, pdr26@drexel.edu and Jana Sczersputowski, BA, Educational Message Services, Inc., 2300 Alessandro Drive, Suite 100, Ventura, CA 93001.

Background. Recent surveys including an annual one in Lehigh, Pennsylvania have suggested that public awareness and concern for terrorism preparedness may be waning significantly. Despite significant federal and state preparedness funding for communication purposes, a literature review and extensive discussion with state health and large city leaders in the health communication area has revealed few past efforts to reach residents of states to increase awareness and/or change behaviors in terms of preparing for biological events, other terrorism events or disasters. In addition, a special need has been identified to reach special populations in disaster preparations. Methods. The authors and several collaborators are currently planning to conduct a pilot study of social marketing materials to diverse populations in Philadelphia to increase awareness and potential behavior change in residents in terms of preparing for disasters or terrorism events. We are beginning the planning of state of the art formative research on this topic and our initial target audience for focus groups, pre-tesing of materials, and an eventual pilot test will be residents who use two Philadelphia WMCAs. Our pilot test will include the pre-testing of materials and also employ the technique of Narrowcasting (EMS). We expect by the conference to be in the pilot test stage. Discussion. The eventual goal of this project is to develop model campaign materials that can be tailored to other targeted audiences rapidly, and to plan and conduct a much larger campaign for all area residents.

Learning Objectives:

• Attendees will learn about past social marketing campaigns to increase the public's preparation for terrorism, including the RI campaign.
• Attendees willl learn about the formative research including development of focus groups that went into planning this campaign.
• To learn why the technique of narrowcasting will be pilot tested.

Keywords: Communication, Bioterrorism

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commertial supporters WITH THE EXCEPTION OF Educational Messaging Service will be serving as a sub-contractor to our Center for this project in consulting capacity. I receive no renumeration from that firm, but the co-author, Jana Sczersputowski is an employee of that firm (Director of Project Dev.