202590 Meeting the Challenges of Cholera and Salmonella Outbreaks: The Role of a National Health Hotline and Web-based Information and Referral System – CDC-INFO

Tuesday, November 10, 2009: 4:45 PM

Janice Nall, MBA , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA
Amy Burnett, MPH , National Center for Health Marketing, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA
Paul Abamonte , National Center for Health Marketing, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA
Susan Laird, MSN, RN , National Center for Health Marketing, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA
Elizabeth Harris, PhD , Evaluation, Management & Training Associates, Inc., Encino, CA
  
CDC-INFO is a proactive, unified, and integrated approach to the delivery of public health information. CDC-INFO is designed to contribute to improving the health and safety of the public. Customers are defined as any individual or group seeking health or public health information from CDC. This includes the public, media, medical and healthcare professionals, public health professionals, partner groups, businesses, researchers, and others. Customer interactions occur through multiple channels, e.g., telephone calls, e-mails, and the website and may occur in Spanish, English or TTY.

The Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe and the January 2009 Salmonella outbreak in the United States are examples of how CDC-INFO has delivered public health information in real-time during emerging events. Challenges associated with the need to develop and disseminate accurate public health information in real-time over multiple channels will be discussed and actual examples from the two emergency events provided. Commonly-asked questions by the public related to Cholera and Salmonella will be presented and explored from an audience research perspective. Demographic data such as the ethnic background, gender, age and geographic location of the inquirer will be evaluated in order to examine potential impact on the types of questions asked and satisfaction with the quality and delivery of public health information.

Call Back Survey findings will be presented in order to determine the potential lasting impact of CDC-INFO's public health information on knowledge, attitudes and behavior.

A paper on the Salmonella Outbreak will be presented, documenting CDC-INFO's response and lessons learned from audience research.

Learning Objectives:
Describe the process and challenges of developing public health messages at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during emerging outbreaks and communicating in real-time to the public through CDC-INFO for purpose of containment Analyze audience research findings regarding satisfaction with the channel of communication, information received, and other factors Discuss audience research findings related to demographics and explore the lessons learned for responding to future outbreaks

Keywords: Emergency, Public Health Education and Health Promotion

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Janice Nall is the Director of e-health for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is a frequent presenter within CDC and at national conferences related to health and information systems.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Technology Based Approaches to Health Education
See more of: Public Health Education and Health Promotion