IHP 510 Module 4 Message Design Paper Example

What We Say and to Whom: Designing Screening Messages for Five Audiences

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

IHP 510: Marketing, Communications Strategies and Outreach

Module Four Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

What We Say and to Whom: Designing Screening Messages for Five Audiences

Audience research at Lakeview Health System identified five groups of patients overdue for colorectal cancer screening, each with different barriers and motivators. This paper decides what the campaign will say to each group. It draws on research about which beliefs drive behavior, the difference between targeted and tailored communication and strategies for cultural appropriateness, and it offers sample messages and a plan for testing them.

What Drives the Behavior

Many cancer screening campaigns lead with fear, emphasizing how deadly the disease is. Carpenter (2010) pooled prospective studies to see which health belief model beliefs actually forecast what people later do. Perceived benefits of acting and perceived barriers to acting were the strongest predictors, while perceived severity of the disease was a weak predictor and perceived susceptibility was modest. For message design, this suggests that telling people how serious colorectal cancer is will do less than showing them that screening is worthwhile and that the obstacles are smaller than they think.

Targeted and Tailored Communication

Kreuter et al. (2003) distinguished targeted from tailored health communication. Targeted materials are designed for a defined group, such as Spanish-speaking women, based on characteristics the group shares. Tailored materials are adapted to an individual, using information gathered about that person, such as their stated barriers or readiness to change. Both can be culturally appropriate. They described five strategies for achieving cultural appropriateness: peripheral strategies that change appearance, evidential strategies that present data relevant to the group, linguistic strategies, constituent-involving strategies that draw on members of the community and sociocultural strategies that reflect the group's values. They argued that combining approaches, and especially involving community members and addressing values, offers the most promise.

Evidence on Tailoring

Tailored print materials were put to the test in a meta-analysis by Noar et al. (2007). Tailored materials produced a small but statistically significant effect on behavior compared with non-tailored materials. Effects were larger when materials were tailored on more theoretical concepts, such as barriers and self-efficacy, and for preventive behaviors such as screening. Small effects matter when applied to thousands of people, and they suggest that even simple tailoring, such as addressing a patient's own stated barrier, is worth the effort.

A Core Message

All segments share a core message built on benefit and ease: Screening can stop colon cancer before it starts. You can do it at home, for free, in a few minutes. The core message emphasizes prevention as a benefit and removes the most common barriers, cost, time and fear of colonoscopy preparation, by introducing the home stool test. It avoids graphic fear appeals and medical jargon.

Targeted Messages by Segment

For newly eligible adults, the message addresses the belief that they are too young: Screening now starts at 45. Do it once, and you may not need to think about it again for years. For lapsed screeners, the message is a reminder with convenience: You're due. We've mailed your free test kit; it takes five minutes. For Medicaid patients facing practical barriers, it removes cost and travel: No cost, no trip, no time off work. For Spanish-preferring patients, messages are written in Spanish, not translated from English, and framed around family: Hazlo por tu familia, delivered by community health workers and Spanish radio. For Black men, messages feature Black physicians and peers, acknowledge that trust must be earned and emphasize being there for family, delivered through barbershops and churches.

Table 1. Messages and Cultural Strategies by Segment

Note. Strategies follow the categories described by Kreuter and colleagues.

Tailoring at the Individual Level

The campaign will also tailor. When a patient answers a text or portal question about why they have not been screened, the follow-up message will address that specific barrier: instructions and a video for patients worried about doing the test correctly, information about costs for those concerned about bills and a call from a navigator for those who fear a positive result. This approach follows the evidence that tailoring on barriers is most effective for screening.

Choosing Messengers

Who delivers a message can matter as much as what it says. For newly eligible adults, messages will come from their own primary care clinician through the portal, because hearing directly from one's own clinician tends to carry unusual weight in screening decisions, and patients often say they were never told they were due. For Spanish-preferring patients, community health workers and a respected local radio host will carry the message. For Black men, the campaign will work with Black physicians at Lakeview and with barbers already trained through the county's barbershop health program, who can talk about screening in a relaxed setting. Messengers will receive a short briefing and a simple card with key facts, so the message stays accurate while sounding like their own words.

Readability and Design

Every piece will use plain sixth-grade wording, use short sentences and large type and include pictures showing how to use the kit. Instructions will be tested with patients who have limited literacy. Materials in Vietnamese and Somali will be developed with community partners rather than translated by software.

Testing Messages Before Launch

Each message will be tested with members of its segment before launch. Short interviews will ask whether the message is clear, believable and motivating and whether anything feels off-putting. For text reminders, the campaign will compare two versions in a small randomized test, measuring kit return rates, and use the better one. This follows Noar's broader principle that formative research and pretesting improve campaign effectiveness.

Conclusion

Evidence suggests that messages emphasizing benefits and reducing barriers will outperform fear, that targeting and tailoring improve fit and that deeper cultural strategies matter more than translation alone. Lakeview's messages follow that evidence, with a shared core and segment-specific versions tested before launch.

References

Carpenter, C. J. (2010). A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of health belief model variables in predicting behavior. Health Communication, 25(8), 661-669. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2010.521906

Kreuter, M. W., Lukwago, S. N., Bucholtz, D. C., Clark, E. M., & Sanders-Thompson, V. (2003). Achieving cultural appropriateness in health promotion programs: Targeted and tailored approaches. Health Education & Behavior, 30(2), 133-146. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198102251021

Noar, S. M., Benac, C. N., & Harris, M. S. (2007). Does tailoring matter? Meta-analytic review of tailored print health behavior change interventions. Psychological Bulletin, 133(4), 673-693. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.4.673