Outreach & Promotion
Many public health messages need to be customized based on an array of factors, including age, gender, ethnicity, and health disparities. By developing culturally specific public health messages, individuals and the communities in which they live are empowered with the knowledge, resources, and tools to effect change in their lives and improve their health and well-being.
Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) is nationally respected for its successful outreach efforts targeting special populations. We have a solid network of partnerships and relationships with:
- underserved/at-risk communities
- colleges and universities
- churches and other faith-based houses of worship
- tribal populations
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Education Institutions (MEIs)
- professional societies
These partners help us to better understand our audiences and their information needs. This allows us to customize an educational approach that will best reach them.
Our outreach tools include:
- training courses
- computer and Web-based exercises
- video teleconferences that support minority outreach programs
- faith-based initiatives that address health disparities, including HIV/AIDS
- conferences, expositions, and seminars
You can call on our multidisciplined, diverse team to work with you to reach out and educate communities, the public, health care professionals, and researchers about federal agency resources and public health issues.
Some of our successes include:
The Consumer Health Resource Information Service (CHRIS) Program. The CHRIS program is a faith-based initiative conceptualized by ORAU to assist the National Library of Medicine (NLM) in eliminating health disparities--diseases, disorders and conditions facing today's minority population.
Through collaboration among participating churches and with other local, state, and national community service organizations, CHRIS effectively disseminates reliable culturally-specific consumer health information and provide core health-related services.
The program includes funding for:
- computer equipment,
- internet skills training,
- consumer health information access training,
- consumer health lay ministry and parish nurse training, and
- two educational workshops/activities for the participating churches.
A guide and tool kit for implementing a program like CHRIS is available on ORAU's Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education Web site.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Immunization Program (NIP) - Racial and Ethnic Adult Disparities in Immunization (READII). Research by the CDC examined the reasons why people, including various racial/ethnic groups, chose not to be immunized against influenza and pneumonia. In response to this information, CDC/NIP developed informational materials for these populations. ORAU assisted NIP in evaluating the newly-developed materials with these selected consumers.
Prevention of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Among Immigrants. A power outage following a 2002 ice storm in Charlotte, N.C., resulted in 124 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning. Many of these occurred in the Hispanic community, where a number of people, particularly newer immigrants, used charcoal or propane devices inside their homes for heat and cooking.
For the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ORAU conducted focus groups to test Public Service Announcements on the dangers of carbon monoxide. The study collected related information on the participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding the subject. All participants were Spanish-speaking, recent immigrants to the United States with less than 12 years of formal education.
Additional project examples can be found on the ORISE Web site.
