Online Program

Oral

Fotonovelas have been used successfully as edutainment vehicles in US Latino communities, especially with recent US immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. The dramatic story lines follow a recognizable and popular genre that remains culturally relevant and accessible in community locations. Stories are typically made available in both English and Spanish. Audiences may include teens up to seniors with stories covering topics as diverse as sex education, nutrition and diabetes, cervical cancer, depression, dementia, and more. This session will introduce a variety of fotonovela and webnovela formats and topics used impact health outcomes in the US Latino population. The audience will learn from those with community experience about the process to develop a successful culturally-appropriate material including community involvement in the review, story development, and promotion. Differences between traditional and newer models for distribution (e.g., social media, web-based, logistics for showing DVDs) and evaluation metrics will be highlighted, particularly as the medium evolves into the digital age. The session has important implications for public health and health communications professionals working with Latino communities who wish to optimize their experience developing or using fotonovelas. These include: assessing the pros and cons of booklets vs. web-enabled functionality for a given target audience or community, and identifying metrics to measure the success of a story-based novela intervention.

Session Objectives: List 3 key components that make developing a fotonovela successful Describe how distribution and access are evolving with digital or webnovela media. Describe 2 evaluation metrics used to measure impact when using a fotonovela or webnovela as an intervention.