Intervention Type: Mass media

TV, radio, newspapers, billboards, etc. (Community Guide insufficient evidence*)

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2022 Messaging Guidebook for Black & African American People: Messages to Motivate for Colorectal Cancer Screening 

Black and African American people experience disproportionately high incidence and mortality rates from colorectal cancer (CRC), with CRC death rates almost 40% higher than those of white people. While screening is only one element of the work that needs to be done to address these CRC disparities, it is important to promote screening in the best way possible.

The 2022 Messaging Guidebook for Black & African American People: Messages to Motivate for Colorectal Cancer Screening is intended to provide you with information and tools to help you work towards closing disparity gaps by using effective, tailored cancer screening messaging to help motivate people to get screened.

 

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Background and Goals

The guidebook is a supplement to the 2019 Colorectal Cancer Screening Messaging Guidebook: Recommended Messages to Reach the Unscreened. Based on the 2019 market research findings, the NCCRT and the American Cancer Society set out to gain a deeper understanding of the barriers to screening that Black and African American people face through our market research. The overall goal of the research was to: 

  • Gain a deeper understanding of the barriers to being screened 
  • Understanding healthcare behaviors and perceptions 
  • Understand how systemic racism and social injustice impact the Black community’s experiences within the healthcare system 
  • Uncover different motivators to encourage screening
  • Identify preferred and trusted information sources 
  • Gather reactions to potential messaging and messaging aspects to identify what elements of messaging will be most effective

This guidebook shares the findings and recommendations gathered from that research and is further designed to help educate, empower, and mobilize those not getting screened for colorectal cancer. Our vision is that our partners and advocates in the field use this guidebook to strengthen their communication campaigns and create resources that resonate with Black and African American communities.

View the June 21, 2022 webinar introducing the messaging guidebook.

Additional NCCRT market research and messaging guidance:

Acknowledgement

The NCCRT would like to thank the Public Awareness & Social Media Strategic Priority Team members and Advisory Committee, who generously offered their time and expertise to develop this guidebook’s research and content. We want to extend a special thank you to Quest Diagnostics, the Association of Black Gastroenterologists and Hepatologists, and Elevance Health Foundation for their support and guidance in conducting the market research and developing this guidebook.

Spread the Word

Sample Facebook/LinkedIn Posts

Black and African American adults experience disproportionally higher incidence and mortality rates from colorectal cancer. The National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable’s newly released messaging guidebook provides market-research findings and research-tested messages to encourage unscreened Black and African American adults to seek colorectal cancer screening. https://www.nccrt.org/Black-Messaging-Guidebook  

Only 65% of Black adults aged 50 and older are up to date with potentially life-saving colorectal cancer screening. Download the newly released National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable messaging guidebook to uncover motivators and potential messaging mechanisms to encourage regular colorectal cancer screening among Black and African American adults. https://www.nccrt.org/Black-Messaging-Guidebook

Sample Tweets

Black & African American adults experience disproportionally higher incidence & mortality from #colorectalcancer. This new @NCCRTnews messaging guidebook can help strengthen your communications to promote #CRC screening. https://www.nccrt.org/Black-Messaging-Guidebook #80inEveryCommunity #getscreened

1 in 3 Black adults aged 50+ are not up to date with potentially life-saving #colorectalcancer screening. Download the new @NCCRTnews messaging guidebook for research-tested messages to encourage #CRC screening: https://www.nccrt.org/Black-Messaging-Guidebook #80inEveryCommunity #getscreened

Template Newsletter Blurbs

Brief version:

The National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable’s newly released 2022 Messaging Guidebook for Black & African American People: Messages to Motivate for Colorectal Cancer Screening  highlights new market research focused on identifying barriers to colorectal cancer screening, understanding preferred and trusted sources for receiving healthcare information, and research-tested messages to help encourage unscreened Black and African American people to seek colorectal cancer screening.

Long version:

The National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable’s newly released 2022 Messaging Guidebook for Black & African American People: Messages to Motivate for Colorectal Cancer Screening  highlights new market research focused on identifying barriers to colorectal cancer screening, understanding preferred and trusted sources for receiving healthcare information, and research-tested messages to help encourage unscreened Black and African American people to seek colorectal cancer screening.

Black and African American people experience disproportionately high incidence and mortality rates from colorectal cancer, with colorectal cancer death rates almost 40% higher than those of white people. While screening is only one element of the work to address these colorectal cancer disparities, it is essential to promote screening in the best way possible. This new guidebook is intended to provide recommendations to enhance marketing and communication efforts while providing tools to strengthen communication campaigns that resonate with Black and African American communities. 

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March 2020 Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month Broadcast

On March 5th, 2020, NCCRT hosted a live broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia featuring Dr. Richard Wender, NCCRT Chair and other special guests to mark National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. This recorded broadcast features interviews with experts, survivors, 2020 80% in Every Community National Achievement Awards winners, and others.

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2019 Colorectal Cancer Screening Messaging Guidebook: Recommended Messages to Reach the Unscreened

In 2018, the NCCRT and the American Cancer Society researched screened and unscreened populations to better understand and address screening disparities. The goals of the market research were to:

  • Measure general awareness of colorectal cancer screening methods.
  • Understand the rationale, attitudes, and motivations for being screened or not.
  • Analyze priority populations such as adults aged 50-54, rural dwellers, and the marketplace insured.
  • Identify logical and emotional drivers that could encourage screening.
  • Use the drivers to create and test messages that would motivate unscreened individuals.

This guidebook shares the findings and recommendations gathered from that research and is further designed to help in the education, empowerment, and mobilization of those who are not getting screened for colorectal cancer. Our hope is that our partners can take this research and the recommended messaging provided to strengthen your own communications campaigns, creating resources that resonate with the target audiences even more by using your own creativity, innovation and spokespersons.

The NCCRT would like to thank the Public Awareness and Social Media Task Group members who participated in the conceptualization of this Guidebook’s research and content. Also, a very special thank you to the 80% in Every Community Market Research Advisory Group for their participation, expertise, and oversight. 

Other Guides and Resources: 

The Hispanics/Latinos and Colorectal Cancer Companion Guide and Asian Americans and Colorectal Cancer Companion Guide introduce market research about the unscreened from these populations and include tested messages in Spanish and several Asian languages. The 2017 Communications Guidebook is also still a useful resource for developing your messaging campaigns. 

2019 Messaging Guidebook – Table of Contents (Section Downloads Below)

Other tools were developed during the 80% by 2018 campaign and can still help you promote and evaluate your communications:

More communications tools and resources will be coming soon!

 

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80% in Every Community Press Kit

Below are relevant materials for press events and communications about 80% in Every Community. We hope these materials serve as an excellent foundation for your communication needs and to share about 80% in Every Community with stakeholders who might be less familiar with the campaign. As you develop media relationships, note that it is always best to prepare new and unique story opportunities for reporting. 

Use the following tools to help you promote and evaluate 80% in Every Community communications:

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GW Cancer Center
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Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month Social Media Toolkit – March 2019

This toolkit, developed by the George Washington University (GW) Cancer Center, is designed to help public health professionals establish a Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month social media strategy, implement Facebook and Twitter best practices, disseminate Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month messaging, and manage and evaluate social media efforts.

This toolkit provides a short introduction to use of social media in a health system context, a list of Twitter and Facebook best practices for messages, a list of sample tweets and Facebook posts, other ideas for participating in colorectal cancer awareness month, tips on evaluating social media efforts, and a list of references and other resource links.

Public health professionals, cancer control professionals, coalitions, community-based organizations and stakeholders can all use this toolkit and adapt its messaging for their unique audiences and areas of expertise.

Evaluation: The recommendations and sample messages in the toolkit were designed using evidence-based social media and colorectal cancer messaging best practices.

Evaluation assets: The toolkit includes a section on Measuring Success, which explains how to use analytics to evaluate the impact of social media messages and campaigns.

Permissions: Made publicly available online by the GW Cancer Center.

Publication date: February 2019

Post date: September 2017, revised February 2019

Contact: Send comments, questions, and suggestions to cancercontrol@gwu.edu.

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best practices handbook for health plans
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“Thank you! This is exactly the type of information health plans need to pass to one another to improve partnership/collaboration, as the consumer will benefit at the end.”

“I really enjoyed that each of the health plans featured in the toolkit highlights a different intervention or opportunity. That gives our partners many approaches to choose from.”

Colorectal Cancer Screening Best Practices Handbook for Health Plans

Health plans have an essential role to play in the effort to screen more Americans for colorectal cancer, particularly given that seven out of 10 people who are unscreened are covered by insurance.

Colorectal Cancer Screening Best Practices Handbook for Health Plans, provides a first-of-its-kind compilation of best practices, case studies, templates and tools, that will kick start or infuse health plans’ efforts to save more lives and prevent more cancers.

To develop the handbook, the NCCRT convened an advisory group of health plan experts and interviewed high-performing health plans to understand what works and what doesn’t when it comes to increasing screening among members. Thank you to the many individuals and organizations who contributed their time and expertise to developing this much requested resource.

In the future, we hope to update this handbook with more case studies from high-performing health plans. If you have a story to share about how your health plan has worked to raise colorectal cancer screening rates, please email nccrt@cancer.org.

NCCRT’s issue brief, The Importance of Waiving Cost-sharing for Follow-up Colonoscopies, provides additional information on the colonoscopy copay issue.

View the March 28, 2017 webinar introducing the Handbook for a guided tour of the best practices, case studies, and templates and tools found within the handbook, and hear from one of the profiled health plans.

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CRC Communications Guidebook
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80% by 2018 Communications Guidebook: Recommended Messaging to Reach the Unscreened

This Guidebook is based on market research from the American Cancer Society with guidance from the NCCRT Public Awareness Task Group. The Guidebook is designed to help educate, empower and mobilize three key audiences who are not getting screened for colorectal cancer:

  • The newly insured
  • The insured, procrastinator/rationalizer
  • The financially challenged

The goal of the Guidebook is to share what we know about reaching these hard-to-persuade groups using tested messages.

The 2017 Guidebook includes additional templates, tools and customized resources. (Note: Some versions of Internet Explorer create errors in the document. If you experience problems please use an alternate browser, such as Firefox or Google Chrome.)

The Hispanics/Latinos and Colorectal Cancer Companion Guide and Asian Americans and Colorectal Cancer Companion Guide introduce market research about the unscreened from these populations and include tested messages in Spanish and several Asian languages.

Use the following tools to help you promote and evaluate 80% by 2018 communications:

The Guidebook reviews what we know from market research about the unscreened and introduces and explains new tested messages. It also provides tools with the messages incorporated to get you started:

Our hope is that partners can take this research and messages provided in the Guidebook and make the message resonate with the target audiences even more by using their own creativity, innovation and spokespersons.

View the following webinars to learn more about the market research that went into this work, and the tools that are available.

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Asian Americans Companion Guide & 2017 Communications Updates

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Asian Americans Companion Guide & 2017 Communications Updates – February 9, 2017

This webinar introduced new assets for 80% by 2018 communications work, including the new Asian Americans and Colorectal Cancer Companion Guide, advice on earning earned media, advice on engaging celebrities and tips for evaluating your communications efforts. These topics are covered in three resources to help you promote and evaluate 80% by 2018 communication efforts:

Speakers:

  • Karen E. Kim, MD, MS, University of Chicago
  • Kathleen Lobb, The Entertainment Industry Foundation
  • John Patton, National Association of Chronic Disease Directors
  • Amanda Hane, Amherst H. Wilder Foundation
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Tested Messages to Reach the Unscreened
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Hispanics/Latinos and Colorectal Cancer Companion Guide

The Hispanics/Latinos and Colorectal Cancer Companion Guide is a supplement to the 80% by 2018 Communications Guidebook, created in 2015 and updated in February 2016. This Companion Guide is based on market research on Hispanics/Latinos that are not up-to-date with recommended colorectal cancer screening. The Companion Guide includes:

  • Perceptions about colorectal cancer and barriers to screening among unscreened Hispanics/Latinos
  • Recommendations for reaching unscreened Hispanics/Latinos
  • Spanish language tested messages

The Companion Guide reviews what we know from market research about unscreened Hispanics/Latinos and introduces and explains new tested messages.

New materials that utilize the messaging are now available for all to use.  Partners are invited to use these materials below as is OR cobrand these materials in partnership with the NCCRT and the American Cancer Society.

To cobrand the materials, please fill out the responsible use agreement. You will then be sent the original files with a button allowing you to upload your logo to cobrand the materials.

Our hope is that partners can take this research and messages provided and make the messages resonate with their target audiences even more by using their own creativity, innovation and spokespersons.

Visit the the 80% by 2018 Communications Guidebook to find additional tools and resources to help you promote and evaluate your communications. Find additional guidance on communications for Asian Americans in the Asian Americans and Colorectal Cancer Companion Guide.

View the February 9th, 2016 webinar introducing the Companion Guide.