Background: Due to COVID-19, MITRE had to change from in-person to virtual focus groups to obtain youth perceptions regarding their participation in pregnancy prevention programs.

Methods: MITRE conducted 55+ virtual focus groups and interviews as part of a mixed-methods evaluation of five previously proven effective pregnancy prevention programs. These programs were implemented among youth, ages 12-16 years, by 6 community organizations across 15+ sites in the U.S.

Results: Conducting virtual focus groups required adjusting traditional strategies. The differences included additional time for site training and logistics, technical set-up to reduce barriers for participants, and coordinating over-recruitment to account for ~60% of scheduled youth attending the focus groups. A unique need in the virtual setting was for a community liaison to assist with reminding youth to log onto the focus groups and providing the MITRE team with situational awareness when youth were non-responsive or experiencing difficulties. MITRE also needed a team member to work with the community liaison so they could problem-solve while the MITRE moderator welcomed and built rapport with the youth. Moderators found that youth were not often comfortable sharing their video but allowing the use of chat and using visual aides to display real-time responses were two effective ways to build rapport.

Conclusion: Virtual focus groups are an effective method in gaining youth perceptions across a wide geographic range when the moderation team allocates substantial time for coordination with participants and sites; uses a liaison to improve information flow; and maximizes the use of technology.

Approved for Public Release; Distribution Unlimited. Public Release Case Number 21-0813

The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) partnered with the Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI) to create an equity-centered community engagement strategy for the State Health Assessment (SHA). Central to the strategy is obtaining direct feedback from Louisiana residents about their health concerns and how factors in their community influence their ability to be healthy.

This innovative assessment approach is grounded in evidence-based practices and health equity frameworks to ensure an equitable, actionable, and accountable SHA. Engagement and promotional mechanisms include a communications, social media and partnership promotional toolkit and virtual meeting materials as well as a participatory data collection approach including an online community survey, community member interviews, public health leader interviews, and an Instagram photovoice campaign.

Although the Louisiana approach is designed for virtual engagement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be adapted for hybrid (both in-person and virtual) engagement. The approach takes into consideration available technology, offering multiple opportunities for community members to engage including online, in person, via phone, and through social media. The goal is to meet individuals where they are and remove barriers that have prevented community members from participating in SHAs in the past.

The SHA approach was designed to ensure that the needs, priorities and strategies identified during the SHA reflect the state’s most pressing health concerns from the perspective of its residents, and generates more partner, resident, and stakeholder participation in the implementation of Louisiana’s statewide health improvement plan. The SHA will be implemented beginning in Summer 2021.

Youth participation and perspectives are often not included among existing research efforts to promote public health. In an effort to address health inequity and promote youth-informed public health research, it is imperative to incorporate youth voice, action, and leadership. The current project utilized a youth participatory action research framework (Lindquist-Grantz et al., 2018) to research health factors that affect adolescents and their households in relation to the pandemic (COVID-19). As such, youth adapted and administered a 95-item survey (Epidemic-Pandemic Impacts Inventory-EPII; Grasso, D.J., Briggs-Gowan, M.J., Ford, J.D., & Carter, A.S. 2020) to assess the impact of the pandemic (COVID-19) on different domains of their lives. The survey assesses the domains of Education, Home Life, Employment, Social Activities, Economic, Emotional Health & Well-Being, Physical Health Problems, Physical Distancing & Quarantine, Infection History, and Positive Change. Youth co-researchers made adaptations to the survey and research design to account for the impact of the remote school format. Data collection is currently underway. A total of 50 survey respondents are expected to provide input to youth researchers about factors that are impacting their peers and families during the past year in the context of the pandemic. Youth researchers were fully engaged in all aspects of the research, creating a pilot for further integration of research within their civic, community organization, pending the outcome of the study results. This presentation will describe the process for designing youth-led research and share preliminary results.

Background: Health interventions continue to grow on social media and researchers must find innovative ways to engage online communities to inform research activities. Little has been documented describing this approach for health messages on social media.

Methods: We assembled a diverse parent advisory board (PAB) by recruiting on Twitter: six parents (5 female, 1 male) who identify as African American, South Asian-American, and white, from across six states in the U.S., including urban, suburban and rural, with children ages 11-12. Over a six-month period, we held monthly meetings with the PAB to develop personas to be used to deliver HPV vaccine messages to other parents on Twitter. Before each meeting they completed a workbook with persona development materials and targeted questions to gather extensive feedback.

Results: The PAB helped develop four personas that will be used to deliver HPV vaccine messages on Twitter: 1) Informed Altruist, 2) Real Talker, 3) Information Gatherer, and 4) Supporter. They provided expert insights and feedback on persona characteristics, lifestyle, vaccine motivations, vaccine issues, communication, contextual influences, and individual influences. The PAB suggested to highlight specific fears around vaccines (e.g., making the wrong decision or not feeling confident in a choice). They also discussed how they personally communicate with other parents around vaccines, and how we could incorporate those specific details into the personas.

Conclusion: Engaging parents on Twitter to inform research activities was important for buy-in and oversight of research activities. Their breadth of experiences and depth of understandings provided important grounding in health messaging.

Background. Health and environmental communication interventions may take a variety of forms: from extensive civic engagement efforts to campaigns designed by professional strategic communications groups with minimal public input. Using formative data and community input (in various forms) can enhance intervention quality and impact and that tailoring or targeting of intervention content based on this process should be central to message design. In this presentation, we draw from our recent work to distinguish between cultural tailoring processes and cultural tailoring of content for communication interventions.

Methods. We review literature and describe our experiences across a series of studies developing communication interventions in the context of environment and health.

Results. Using formative data and community input (in various forms) can enhance intervention quality and impact and that tailoring or targeting of intervention content based on this process should be central to message design. We distinguish between cultural tailoring processes and cultural tailoring of content for communication interventions. For cultural tailoring processes, we describe the range of approaches to intervention design: from those led and designed by community members using participatory frameworks to those done without community input. For cultural tailoring of content, we extend earlier frameworks of message tailoring to account for the literature on persuasion and intercultural communication and specify the range of options for designing messages that account for characteristics of cultural groups.

Conclusions. Cultural tailoring of processes and content can have unique positive contributions to environmental and health campaigns. Community engagement can improve outcomes in both cases.

Background. The impact of evidence-based smoking prevention and cessation interventions for LGBTQ+ populations is often limited by insufficient dissemination and implementation of these programs. This prompts us to take a “designing for dissemination” approach for Project Resist, which examines the effects of a culturally tailored inoculation approach to increase resilience to tobacco marketing influences among young adult sexual minority women.

Methods. Rooted in Participatory Implementation Science, we are using a consultative model, engaging recognized leaders in the area of LGBTQ+ health as Expert Advisory Committee (EAC) members. Our approach emphasizes intensive engagement every 3 to 6 months to ensure that critical study-related decisions are informed by EAC expertise without over-burdening members. As an illustration, we describe the EAC’s impact on key informant interviews with practitioners and leaders from organizations representing the target dissemination audience. The interviews (n=20) explored key contextual factors expected to drive later adoption and utilization of Project Resist’s findings.

Results. EAC members offered critical insight and support by a) providing practice-based context (e.g., future adopters’ decision-making around tobacco programning); b) revisions to the interview guide; c) participant recruitment; d) interpretation of early findings (e.g., nuances of intersectional identities that influence interpretation), and e) ideas for incorporating results into planned health communication experiments (e.g., challenges regarding the extent to which people may or may not identify with intended signifiers of LGBTQ+ community identity).

Conclusions. Ongoing collaboration with EAC members is expected to increase the usability and impact of the findings from this health communication project. Please note investigators and EAC members are co-authors on this submission.

Background:

Social connectedness is a significant determinant of health and serves as a critical factor in protecting, improving, and maintaining individual and community wellbeing. Forgiveness is a tenet of all world religions, yet despite a substantial body of evidence indicating higher forgiveness scores correlate with a wide array of improved health outcomes, addressing the concept of forgiveness is largely ignored in public health promotion intervention efforts.

Methods:

A curriculum was developed by Forgive for Health Ministries, Inc. (FFHM), a 501c (3) faith-based organization in Georgia, to improve forgiveness, social connectedness, and wellbeing. The FFHM curriculum used a Social and Emotional Learning Model and was implemented through two separate, culturally appropriate programs for African American adults and youth ≤ 12 years of age. The programs consisted of virtual sessions called “Art, Tea, and Forgiveness Circles” (ATFCs) that were conducted weekly. Initially, the sessions were held in-person but changed to a virtual platform at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results:

From January 2020 to March 2021, FFHM conducted more than 50 weekly sessions reaching individuals across the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. Forgiveness assessments were conducted for participants at various implementation intervals. Participants reported a reduction in anger, hostility, and depression, improved willingness to forgive, and improved social awareness and relationship skills.

Conclusion:

The ATFC methodology reflects practice-based evidence that can be used to increased social connectedness, forgiveness scores, and ultimately the health of African American adults and youth. Lessons learned from implementation strategies will be shared during this session.

Project Engagement Encouraging Rising Students (PEERS) is an undergraduate program that implements undergraduate-high school student mentorship to encourage STEM education for students grades 9-12 in the Houston area. Throughout the program, undergraduate students facilitate two-hour weekly meetings with high school students on community health-related topics, guiding students to develop their own community health project through project-based learning. The program has worked with more than 190 high school students and 130 undergraduate mentors since it originated. Despite the pandemic, PEERS continues to expand to other districts outside of the Houston Independent School District.

Studies analyzing the bidirectional mentee-mentor relationship often focuses unidirectionally on the mentee experience. Our study focuses on the other end of the relationship, mentor experience and growth. This study utilizes a qualitative approach, using questionnaires and virtual focus groups to assess growth in (1) interest in community health (2) professional development and (3) feeling competent as simultaneous community health educators and advocates.

Assessments revealed a significant portion of the mentors joined to empower their mentees to believe that they can influence the health of their communities. Additionally, through PEERS, mentors identified that several dimensions in the community are interdependent and that their leadership skills — specifically, adaptability and facilitating the exchange of ideas — have improved. PEERS has opened the door of opportunities to allow both undergraduate and high school students to be in touch with relevant issues in their community and helped them identify that they are more than capable of making a difference in their communities. We hope this encourages implementation of more community health-driven mentorships.

Introduction: Racial minorities in the US have suffered disproportionately during the COVID-19 pandemic, attributed to structural factors such as government policy, healthcare access and systemic racism. This study aims to understand Black community members’ perceptions about how structural factors worsened effects of COVID-19 on their community.

Methods: Qualitative data were collected through six focus groups comprising 25 community members recruited from Black neighborhoods in North St. Louis City and County across three age groups: 18-30 years, 31-59 years, and 60+ years. Analysts thematically coded transcripts using Dedoose software, and summarized coded excerpts, identifying themes and key findings.

Results: Participants reported that systemic racism caused problems for their community during the pandemic, with disparities in access to testing sites and healthcare services, and delays in getting protective equipment and information. Historical trauma, including references to Henrietta Lacks and the Tuskegee study, contributed to heightened distrust of governmental and healthcare organizations. Nearly all participants expressed vaccine hesitancy due to the history of medical injustice. Participants felt that the local and federal government needed to do more in terms of providing consistent mandates. Several participants implied that being Black was a risk factor for COVID-19 in itself. Some reported that messages emphasizing disparities could prove discouraging: “it’s like our backs against the wall.” Participants recommended providing information acknowledging racism and emphasizing accurate information about protective actions from credible sources and channels.

Conclusion: Based on participants’ perspectives, targeted and intentional efforts need to address the lack of trust in structural entities among Black people.