Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Elizabeth Fassett, MS, CHES¹, Katie Kilker, BS, CHES², Patricia Mersereau, RN, MN, CPNP², Christine Prue, PhD², and Edward Fotsch, MD³. (1) Hager Sharp, Inc, 1090 Vermont Avenue, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005, 404-964-1429, efassett@hagersharp.com, (2) National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road, MS E-86, Atlanta, GA 30333, (3) Medem, Inc., 649 Mission Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CT 94105

Background: Health care providers face several barriers in delivering preconceptional health messages to women of childbearing age who are planning pregnancy. To address some of the barriers, CDC developed and evaluated a series of e-mail messages that are packaged as an education program and delivered through a secure online physician-patient communication service (Medem) over a period of three months. Methods: A pretest measuring existing preconceptional health knowledge is sent via e-mail to all women who enroll themselves or who are enrolled by their physicians in the preconceptional e-health education program. After receiving all of the health messages in the series, they receive a posttest via e-mail. Pretest and posttest measures will be examined to assess changes in women's knowledge about topics covered in the messages. Results: Data collection is currently underway. As of February 2006, 235 pretests and 12 posttests have been completed. In a preliminary survey of the effectiveness of automated education programs, 95% of program users reported that the education program service was easy to use and felt that the services could help busy doctors provide extra care and information to patients. Conclusions: This evaluation will show if these preconceptional health messages are effective in changing awareness and knowledge among women receiving the messages. It will also show if online physician-patient communication is an effective new dissemination strategy for important public health messages.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the process of developing health messages and delivering them through an online physican-patient communication service.
• Analyze the effectiveness of an online message delivery tool as a method of changing awareness and knowlege of important health information.

Keywords: Health Communications, Evaluation

Related Web page: www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/pregnancy/default.htm

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation