Diverse Representation of South Asian and Arab Communities through a Diabetes Education Program Media Campaign

Background:

Diabetes in the fourth leading cause of death among Asians in Chicago, and the top leading cause of death among Asian Indians.

Program background:

The All One Community (A1C) Program is a diabetes education and management program tailored towards South Asian and Arab communities in the Chicago. The program includes 13 sessions about healthy behaviors, diabetes, and goal setting aimed at improving self-management and prevention of type 2 diabetes. Participants complete screenings every three months to assess BMI, cholesterol, blood pressure, and A1c.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

The All One Community media campaign was a year long advertisement campaign aimed at recruiting South Asian and Arab community members to enroll in the program. By implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies, Asian Health Coalition in collaboration with 4Faces Advertising Company ran a series of advertisements aimed at representing various nationalities and religions in South Asian and Arab communities to showcase the depth of disparities in these communities surrounding type 2 diabetes. The main set of ads included Indian, Pakistani, and Arab families and were also publicized in English, Urdu, and Arabic. Some examples of advertisements aimed at improving representation of families suffering from diabetes include images of Nepalese immigrants, Muslim women with hijabs, and South Asian families eating cultural food. By including images that are not often highlighted in mainstream media, this media campaign aimed to target those who are the most underrepresented in these respective communities. The advertisements were shared on Instagram and Facebook and included direct links to the All One Community program's website, which contains information about how to join the program. The results of this media campaign were very successful. With almost 13,000 people having clicked the button on the ads to visit the various website, the click through rate of rate of .74% is well above the industry average for Facebook and Instagram. The advertisements were delivered 1.76 million times and reached 60,000 people over a 4 month period. 5,000 interactions were recorded including likes, shares, and clicking on the homepage of the our website. Through satisfaction surveys and focus groups, the advertisements were received well with community members and a total of 3 participants in the program mentioned that they joined because of the advertisements.

Conclusions:

Through this media campaign, it can be concluded that viewing specific minority groups through an intersectional lens can be beneficial to reaching the most amount of people. Additionally, the success of the media campaign emphasizes the need for utilizing multiple languages in health marketing campaigns in order to reach more communities.

Implications for research and/or practice:

The All One Community media campaign can serve as a potential model to show how cultural and religious factors related to chronic diseases can successfully be highlighted through media. With 85% of Asian Americans being foreign-born, factors such as limited English proficiency limit our communities ability to access health education programs. This media campaign highlights how we are able to break down these barriers through equitable media and advertising materials aimed at representing more communities within South Asian and Arab populations.