The 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 12.7% of Hispanic or Latinx people ages 12 and older had a substance use disorder (SUD), and yet almost 95% of those people did not receive specialized care. This was a key consideration as Shatterproof, in partnership with California Department of Health Care Services, launched Unshame California, a statewide addiction stigma reduction campaign. Further, formative research indicated that California’s Latinx community may hold more stigmatizing views in key areas and face unique barriers to receiving treatment. For example, Hispanic respondents displayed higher levels of stigma around medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) than non-Hispanic respondents.

Recognizing the unique cultural nuances of the Spanish-speaking population, Unshame California developed Spanish-language social media channels, fostering an inclusive platform for dialogue. The campaign sought out Spanish-speaking individuals willing to share their experiences with addiction, offering relatable narratives to the audience. This approach was complemented by targeted advertising of these Spanish language stories and collaborations with Latinx-identified or aligned social media influencers.

One year post-launch, Unshame California found that Hispanic adults with exposure to the campaign report a reduction in stigma associated with SUD: public stigma decreased by 8%, social distance stigma by 10%, and MOUD stigma by 9%. These statistics underscore the campaign's correlation with stigma reduction and spotlight the efficacy of tailored interventions. This session will delve into the strategies, outcomes, and lessons learned from Unshame California, offering attendees an overview of effective methods for engaging marginalized communities in addressing addiction stigma.

Introduction: Fever is among the most common chief complaints in newborns. However, new parents/caregivers are often uncertain when to seek emergency-level care and often rely on subjective assessment methods due to lack of access to rectal thermometers.

Aims: 1) Provide rectal thermometers for families with newborns at the Family Health Center of Worcester (FHCW), a federally qualified community health center in Central Massachusetts and 2) Create multilingual newborn health education resources.

Design: Beginning December 2022, rectal thermometers and newborn fever education materials in English, Pashto, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Haitian Creole were provided to FHCW families. Materials included a “Fever Risk Education” magnet and sticker with rectal thermometer instructions. In-person counseling at the newborn’s first clinic visit was an integral part of material dissemination. A survey was conducted to assess families’ feedback, primary language, nativity status, awareness of newborn fever/rectal thermometer guidelines, and information sources on newborn health.

Results: Among 38 families surveyed, 36.8% were primarily English-speaking, 31.6% Spanish, 15.8% Portuguese, 10.5% Haitian Creole, 2.6% Swahili, and 2.6% Vietnamese. 65.8% of families self-reported as immigrants to the US. 73.7% were unaware of age-specific fever guidelines, with 67.9% of this group being immigrants. All families reported reliance of online resources, including parenting blogs and social media, to obtain newborn health information.

Conclusions: In this diverse population, immigrant families exhibited lower awareness of newborn fever guidelines, suggesting potential cultural disparities in newborn health literacy. Culturally-sensitive health education initiatives in community health settings are crucial to address barriers faced by diverse, underserved populations.

Background: Chinese American (CA) immigrant families face early childhood mental health disparities due to structural and social determinants of health. To address this issue, the research team developed OurChild, a web-based in-language app for CA parents of a 2-6-year-old child that provides curated patient-facing culturally and linguistically relevant resources guided by validated screeners that integrates with the child’s electronic medical record. The current ongoing study aims to assess the app’s feasibility through a 6-month implementation study with CA families.

Methods: We reviewed and analyzed the field notes collected from follow-up meetings with parents at the first- and 3-month time points of the study (n=58) using a high-level content analysis and summarized emerging themes.

Results: The most highly accessed topics by parents were emotional management/development and healthy eating. Parents reported that the app facilitated conversations with their healthcare providers and that they found OurChild useful and easy to navigate. Some challenges reported included a lack of time to engage with the app, login issues, unfamiliarity with app functions, and wanted more detailed information (e.g., the result summaries of child assessment). Some suggestions for future improvements included creating an interactive platform for parents and updating the app content (e.g., articles) regularly.

Conclusions: A digital web-app solution may be an important tool to address gap in resources and information on early childhood development and mental health for limited English proficient Chinese American parents. Moreover, the linkage between the web-app may help facilitate interactions and conversations between parents and their child’s healthcare provider.

Lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise have been described as significant predictors of preventable disease, such as Type 2 diabetes. African American women disproportionately develop Type 2 diabetes and are at greater risk, compared to White Americans. The purpose of this study was to examine the association of exercise and adherence to the MyPlate diet plan with the occurrence of Type 2 diabetes among African American women. The health belief model was the theoretical foundation for this study. Research questions were designed to examine the extent to which diet and exercise predict Type 2 diabetes. In this quantitative cross-sectional study, data from the 2015-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination data sets were analyzed, including a representative sample of African American women, ages 18 and older in the U.S. Using SPSS, a series of binary logistic regressions were conducted. After controlling for age, there was no statistically significant association between the MyPlate dietary pattern adherence and diabetes (OR = 0.706, 95% CI [0.292, 1.707], p > 0.005). Similarly, no statistically significant association between exercise and diabetes status was observed among this population (OR = 1.032, 95%CI [0.721, 1.504], p > 0.005). Implications for potential positive social change that could arise from this research include encouraging additional research into other dietary plans that may better correlate with diabetes prevention. Likewise, researchers, health promotion advocates and public health professionals can build on these findings to expand research and examine lifestyle choices that may bring about improved health outcomes among African American women.