Developing a “Social Marketing Plan” for appropriate genomic medicine -meeting the needs of a cultural and linguistic minority group: The Deaf community

A wide variety of genetic services are available throughout the United States, including prenatal, pediatric, adult, and cancer genetic services. An increasing number of genetic services devoted to common adult conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes, are anticipated; with personalized genomic medicine it is expected that everyone may benefit from genetic services in their lifetime. However, historically, use of general genetic services, not limited to deafness, is very low among members of the Deaf community, a linguistic and cultural minority group. We describe a social marketing plan to increase use of genetics services in this group. Instead of using a top-down approach, social marketing focuses on the needs of the targeted audience, which is a collective group and uses a different networking system. As a community-based public health campaign with media components, social marketing strives to create a plan to best approach the target group that would ensure participation in the activity. This planning technique includes strategic planning, message and materials development, pretesting, implementation, and program evaluation. Design of the social marketing plan for this cultural and linguistic minority group is based on experience with a current research project examining impacts of genetic testing on deaf adults. Preliminary results from this research project provide insight into individual factors such behavioral, social, and knowledge factors that are associated with the use of genetics services. Tailoring a culturally competent social marketing plan for a target population would increase the group's awareness of genetics services and improve their overall quality of life.