142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Home Events & Meetings Annual Meeting Schedule & Program

Online Program

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

302006
A Multi-Platform Social Media Campaign to Improve/Empower Latino Health

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 8:30 AM - 8:45 AM

Cliff Despres, B.J. , Institute for Health Promotion Research, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX
Amelie Ramirez, DrPH , Dept of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX
Audio (mp3) recording Recorded Presentation (mp4)
BACKGROUND: Latinos face many cancer health disparities. To improve Latino health behaviors, the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio creates evidence-based, culturally tailored educational videos, articles, newsletters, and websites. To enhance the reach of these materials—and become a national clearinghouse for reputable Latino health information and resources—the IHPR built a unique social media campaign, called SaludToday.

INTERVENTION: The SaludToday campaign has a blog (www.saludtoday.com/blog) and associated Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages. We used existing networks, widgets, and word of mouth to drive blog subscriptions, followers and online views. Blog and social media content is generated daily by IHPR researchers and also represents Latino health news from across the country via a news aggregator.

EVALUATION/RESULTS: SaludToday has many followers via blog (13,000+ subscribers), Twitter (6,000+ followers, including Latino organizations [LULAC, MALDEF, NALEO], actors, celebrities, politicians, and media); Facebook (900+ “likes”); and YouTube (100+ subscribers). One bilingual video, Did You Know?/Sabias usted?, generated 50,000+ views. Defined by follower and online metrics, the IHPR has successfully spread messages about Latino health that, with little effort, get picked up and distributed to our followers’ followers, creating a massive snowball effect of positive health promotion.

CONCLUSIONS: SaludToday continues to enhance Latino health education. The campaign has: won more than a dozen Web Health Awards; reached content-sharing agreements with the media and other guest-post writers ; and orchestrated Twitter chats. The campaign serves a model for health organizations to increase their outreach with minimal cost and staff time.

Learning Areas:

Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs

Learning Objectives:
Explain the effects of a culturally tailored health-focused campaign using social media on Latino audiences. Describe the development and implementation of a health-focused social media campaign that infuses an agency's own communication materials with that of others.

Keyword(s): Latinos, Social Media

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am an internationally recognized cancer and chronic disease health disparities researcher. I have 30 years of experience as principal investigator for many research programs focused on human and organizational communication to reduce chronic disease and cancer health disparities affecting Latinos, including cancer risk factors, clinical trial recruitment, tobacco prevention, obesity prevention, and more. I also train/mentor Latino students, serve on editorial boards for several journals, and direct a Latino health social media campaign.
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.

Back to: 4066.0: Using Social Media to Promote Health (organized by HCWG)