Conclusion

As you have learned Alzheimer’s is on its way to becoming a very big problem for America in the future as the numbers are expect to triple from 5.4 million current diagnoses (an already huge number) of Alzheimer’s by the year 2050. So through this multi-campaign I hope to raise the awareness of this problem and educate people on preventative methods that will help lower their risks because at the time there is no cure for this disease. Also a lot of people think that there is no way to prevent this or lower the risk of getting it but in fact there are many lifestyle changes that can be made to help lower the risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease. So I plan to target a younger audience who do not have the disease and campaign toward them so they can start using the preventative strategies to lower their risk of getting the disease and maybe lower the devastating numbers that are predicted for the future of America.

Individual-Level Media Campaigns

The specific goal of the individual level campaign is to create awareness and knowledge about the preventative methods to help lower the risk of getting Alzheimer’s when you are older. So the primary audience segment that I would like to reach are young African American adults ages 25-30 because this is the time when people are starting their families and creating possible lifestyles that they will likely hold on to and pass on too their families. Also these are the ages that will be the people who start to have the symptoms and maybe diagnosed in the year 2050 as 65+ is the age at which most people are diagnosed and the symptoms usually start a few years before. I chose the African American race because the disease has been shown to be more prevalent in the African American race. The secondary audience will be the kids and the parents of the primary audience because the preventative actions can be passed on to benefit them also.

THEORY

The campaign will be guided by the Health Belief Model because the model goes off the belief that in general, it is believed that people will take action to prevent, to screen for, or to control ill-health conditions if they regard themselves as susceptible to the condition, if they believe it would have potentially serious consequences, if they believe that a course of action available to them would be beneficial in reducing either their susceptibility to or the severity of the condition, and if they believe that the anticipated barriers to (or costs of) taking the action are outweighed by its benefits (Janz, Champion, Strecher, 47,48). This is really what I’m trying to do for this campaign is create awareness and get people to engage in preventative actions for Alzheimer’s by showing them the severity and susceptibility of this disease.  Also show that the actions needed to lower your risk of getting Alzheimer’s are fairly easy to take part in.

VOICE

The voice of the campaign will be both men and women that are in their adult years since it is prevalent in men and women, that have had family with the Alzheimer’s disease. They will have the look of a normal African American citizen. I picked this personification for the campaign because I would like to reach the people who are just normal African Americans in their twenty’s to thirty’s to be able to relate to this voice of the campaign. So if I believe if use the typical normal African American in that age group they will be able to tell stories of how their family member went through Alzheimer’s that people could relate to it. Also there would be messages from these people about how the numbers are supposed to triple by 2050 but we can lower that number if we take part in actions that will help lower our risk of getting Alzheimer’s.

BRANDING

The name of the campaign is going to be “Maintain Your Brain” this will also be used a tagline/catchphrase. I choose this as the name and catchphrase for the campaign because the campaign for one is about taking preventative methods to help lower your risk of getting Alzheimer’s by maintaining a health brain. So I thought that his catchphrase would be perfect for this campaign because not only is catchy but it also pertain directly to the goals of the campaign. The color scheme of the campaign will use primarily purple because that is the color for Alzheimer’s awareness and it also usually accents it with the color yellow that the Alzheimer’s Association does. So I thought I would stick with that since it is something that people are identify with Alzheimer’s. The personality of the campaign will be a casual one because I want the people to feel like using the preventative action is normal and easy to do by showing or educating them in a casual way.

CHANNELS

This campaign will be run through multiple channels that will include social network media, television, and community-based events. Through the social media we will have a facebook and a twitter account where people can get information and share their different ideas of things they can do like recipes with healthy food or fun activities to increase brain activity or reduce stress that can lead to Alzheimer’s. The campaign will also feature an event called “5K for Your Brain” which will be a fundraising and awareness event race that will be used to raise money for more research in how to prevent Alzheimer’s and raise awareness of what is already known to help lower the risk of getting the disease. There will also be television ads that which purpose will be to create awareness of the preventative methods.

POSTER

·      Poster 1

o   This poster will have a background picture split up into two sides. One side on which it shows 5.4 people and be titles 2013 and the other side will be labels 2050 have 16.2 people representing the number people with Alzheimer’s expected to be triple that of 2013. The title of the poster will read as follows “5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, this number is expected to triple by the year 2050…” This will be to show perceived severity and susceptibility. Then on the bottom there will be a cue to action message that reads “stop this devastating number by practicing preventative methods to help lower YOUR risk of getting Alzheimer’s” This will also serve as a self efficacy message because it lets them know that they can reduce their risk of getting the disease. In the bottom right corner there will be the campaign slogan, which is “Maintain Your Brain.” There will also be a link to a website where you can gain more information on preventative strategies.

·      Poster 2

o   This second poster will have a background picture that will show a typical looking African American. The title of the poster will read, “African Americans are almost twice as likely as whites to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.” This will serve as a way to show African Americans who are my targeted audience that they are susceptible to getting this disease. At the bottom it will say “If you are an African American you are at a higher risk, help yourself lower this risk by taking preventative actions.” “go to this website for more information on preventative actions.” That will be the cue to action and it will also be the self efficacy message because it will give them the knowledge they need to help lower their risk of getting Alzheimer’s. In the bottom right hand corner there will be the slogan “Maintain Your Brain”

CAMPAIGN ANALYSIS

I will use surveys and focus groups to measure the cognitive and behavior changes of people that fit the audience profile.  I will also use the pre-post test method because I believe this is the best way to see what people know and then see after what they have learned from out campaigns.

References

Janz, N., Champion, V. & Strecher, V (2002). The health belief model. In K. Glanz, B. Rimer, & F. Lewis (Eds.), Health behavior and health education. San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass

Media Advocacy Strategy

Media Advocacy uses mass media combined with organizing communities to move health public policies forward. What the strategy wants to do is increase the voice of the community for social change. It really looks to increase the power gap between the community and policy maker instead of increasing the information gap, which is not always what a community needs. So media advocacy target policy makers by strengthening the voice of the community to make policy changes needed to further the health of the community.

The specific goal of the media advocacy strategy for this campaign is have a policy and environmental change for the communities that are primarily African American. This campaign will push the community leaders to address the disparities in Alzheimer’s rates in African American compared to whites in America. The push for the policy change will make it easier for people in these communities who may have a lower SES the ability to see doctors who will be able to educate them on this particular health issue and what they can do to lower their risks. At the environmental level the change that will be needed to make is resources to take part in these preventative action. This could include the prices of certain healthy foods or places programs where they can exercise to maintain a healthy heart to keep healthy oxygen flow to the brain. Bottom line these communities need to power and knowledge to take these preventative methods to help lower their risk in their own hand and a lot of these communities either don’t have the resources or knowledge to do so because of poverty, where they live or their access to healthy foods.

The way we would evaluate the effectiveness of these intervention is measure how many people we were able to gain in the community to see this as a problem and to take action on getting the policy makers to make changes to help the community be able to help themselves. Also a no brainer would be if the policy maker actually made the changes to help these communities gain power in being able to take action to help lower their risk of getting Alzheimer’s.

Social Network Interventions

The social network approach is an idea were you target peoples networks which are linkages between people that may (or may not) provide social support and that may serve functions other than providing support (Heaney, Israel, 186). The rational behind this is that people are going to listen a lot better to people that are apart of their network because it is more interpersonal and the person may trust them more, thus making them more likely to do the suggested behavior.

The specific goal of the social networking interventions in this campaign will be to educate existing social networks about the preventative methods of Alzheimer’s and to enhance community’s knowledge about the methods also in hopes to influence people to take part in these actions at an individual level and bring them to a communal level.

ENHANCE NETWORKS USING INDIGINOUS NATURAL HELPERS

To do this the campaign will partner up with health care providers and we will educate the doctors or Mavens who treat patients with Alzheimer’s about the preventative methods. After this the doctors or mavens will be able to educate the families of people with Alzheimer’s about the preventative measure that they can take to help lower the risk of getting the disease. It will be done through the doctors because the people they are educating will have first hand experience of someone with the disease and if they were to learn about the preventative methods they would be more likely to follow them because they know how bad the impact of the disease is firsthand.

ENHANCING NETWORKS THROUGH COMMUNITY CAPACITY BULDING

This will be done implementing branches of the campaign organization into different communities around the nation. What they will do at the communal level is try to get community member involved in the organization and to help set up events like the “5k for Your Brain” run. Each community will be educated on what they can do to help lower their risks of getting Alzheimer’s. After this each community will set up their own 5K run that will be held to fundraise and create awareness about the preventative method to help lower the risk of getting Alzheimer’s. The run will also get people active in one of the action of prevention which is keep your cardio at a healthy level. Eventually the word will spread and the community will become involved in learning to lower risk of getting the disease.

EVALUATION
To evaluate the effectiveness of these intervention the awareness of the communities by counting the number of people involved in the community events and the number of donations and volunteers that are apart of the events. At the individual level it will be east to count how many people the doctors educate on the preventative methods. After this these people will take surveys to see what people learned about the preventative methods. So awareness and action will be measured in these two different ways.

References

Heaney, C. & Israel, B.(2002). Social networks and social support. In K. Glanz, B. Rimer, & F. Lewis (Eds.), Health behavior and health education. San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass

Multicomponent campaign mission and specific goals

The mission of this multi-component is to address this health issue at three different levels. The first being the individual-level media campaign and the specific goal of this component of the campaign is to create awareness and knowledge about the preventative methods to help lower the risk of getting Alzheimer’s when you are older. Next is the Social network intervention component, the specific goal of this part is to educate existing social networks about the preventative methods of Alzheimer’s and to enhance community’s knowledge about the methods also in hopes to influence people to take part in these actions at an individual level and bring them to a communal level. The last part is the media advocacy component and the goal of this part is to have a policy and environmental change for the communities that are primarily African American. The object of this campaign is to fulfill the goals of each component of this campaign.

Current Local & National Alzheimer's Campaigns

The biggest campaign right now at a local level but also is done around the nation in many communities and event held by the Alzheimer’s Association which is called “Walk to End Alzheimer’s” and this is an event that you can be apart of at a local area and join the walk. This event is held annually in 600 different communities across the nation. This event is the largest event to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s care, research, and support.

There are also other campaigns and events being put on by the Alzheimer’s Association at the national level. A national event by them is going to be happing in the month of June is “The Longest Day” which is an event that is going to be used to raise money and spread awareness about the disease. What happens in the event is teams go sunrise-to-sunset honor the strength, passion and endurance of those facing Alzheimer’s disease. You and your teammates complete approximately 16 hours of activity to raise awareness and funds for the care, support and research efforts of the Alzheimer’s Association. 

The government also has a hand in campaigning about Alzheimer’s at a National level. Which is the being put on by U.S. Department of Health & Human Services which is actually Act that signed by President Barack Obama on January 4, 2011. This act is called the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA). What this project is working to do consisted of six different things. This includes creating and maintaining an integrated national plan to overcome Alzheimer’s disease, Coordinate Alzheimer’s disease research and services across all federal agencies, Accelerate the development of treatments that would prevent, halt, or reverse the course of Alzheimer’s disease, Improve early diagnosis and coordination of care and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, Improve outcomes for ethnic and racial minority populations that are at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease, Coordinate with international bodies to fight Alzheimer’s globally.

People affected by Alzheimer's

An estimated 5.4 million Americans of all ages have Alzheimer’s disease in the year 2012. This figure includes 5.2 million people age 65 and older and the 200,000 individuals under age 65 who have younger-onset Alzheimer’s. So as you can see the disease affects a great number of people mostly over the age of 65. 

Of those 5.4 million people nearly two-thirds (3.4 million) of them are women, showing that the disease is more prevalent in women compared to men. According to www.alz.org this difference in numbers of men and women is explain by the fact that women on average live longer than men, thus concluding that women are not more likely than men to get the disease.

There are also some racial differences in the likelihood between whites, African Americans, and Hispanics as African Americans are about twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s than whites. Hispanic are about one and half times as likely to have Alzheimer’s than whites. These stats definitely show some clear racial disparities in the diagnoses of Alzheimer’s. These number can try to be explained by possible other health condition that are more prevalent in the African American and Hispanic communities that increase ones risk for Alzheimer’s such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Lower levels of socioeconomic status in these communities can also lead to increase risk.

The population that are directly diagnosed with this disease are obviously Americans that are over the age of 65 and are the primary audience but that does not mean they are the only ones affect by this devastating disease. We cannot forget that it also affects the families and caregivers of the people diagnosed with the disease. If the numbers continue to rise it will have a great impact and affect a lot of people not even directly tied to the disease, as it will affect health care systems and funding.

So what the stats show is that the disease is most prevalent in Americans over the age of 65 with a huge number of 5.2 million of the 5.4 million Americans that have Alzheimer’s. Of these 5.4 million almost two thirds are women, which does not necessarily suggest that women are more likely to get the disease. Also there are some disparities in race between white, African Americans, and Hispanics and having Alzheimer’s. And don’t forget about the families, health care systems, and health care funding that the increasing numbers of this disease also affects!

All stats are from http://www.alz.org/downloads/facts_figures_2012.pdf

What is Alzheimer’s and why is it an important issue to be addressed?

Alzheimer’s is a brain disease that gradually destroys a person’s memory and thinking skills and, eventually, even the ability to carry out the simplest tasks. Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of dementia, a loss of cognitive functioning and behavioral abilities so severe that it interferes with a person’s daily life and activities (www.nia.nih.gov, 2012). 

The greatest risk factor to this disease is age but it is not completely limited to that. Other risk factors include heredity, cardiovascular, social engagement and diet, and head trauma or head injuries. The age factor is inevitable with every human being but the other factors do have way to lower the risks of them.

According to alfa.org “Currently, 5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease. 5.2 million are aged 65 and over, meaning that one in eight seniors has Alzheimer’s disease. This number is expected to increase 30 percent by 2025 and triple by 2050. Of those with Alzheimer’s, 800,000 live alone and half of these individuals do not have an identifiable caregiver.” This makes Alzheimer’s a major health issue for Americans because currently there is no known cure for this disease and with projected numbers like that it is certain to be a devastating emotional, physical, and financial issue on America. 

Caring for people with Alzheimer’s disease also strains the health and long-term care systems. Individuals with Alzheimer’s disease use a disproportionate amount of health care resources; for instance, they are hospitalized 2-3 times as often as people the same age who do not have the disease (Maslow, 2006). With that said if the disease increases at that rate it is sure to put strain on many health care systems and major funders of those systems, including Medicare and Medicaid. So the financial impact is not just that of the people and families affected by Alzheimer’s but also the countries financial well-being. The implication of this makes Alzheimer’s one of the most important health issues to address because if not addressed soon it is leading to a much bigger problems in the future. 

Introduction

Today Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in America and over 5 million people currently diagnosed with the disease. This number is expected to triple by the year 2050. This poses a very big impactful issue for our future as a nation. This blog will go through my proposal of a multi-component campaign to help educate people on the action that can be made to help lower the risk of getting Alzheimer’s. First there will be an overview of what the Alzheimer’s issue is and why it is important to be addressed. Next it will go through the different component of the multi-component campaign. This will include the individual-level media campaign, social network interventions, and the media advocacy strategy.