DEVELOPING AN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN TO REACH PREGNANT WOMEN AT HIGH RISK OF LATE OR NO PRENATAL CARE

This case study focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of a communications campaign, which is part of a community-based social marketing program to reduce adverse birth outcomes, including mother-to-child HIV transmission, in target areas of New York State. This program, the Community Action for Prenatal Care Initiative (CAPC), is designed to reach pregnant women at high risk of obtaining inadequate or no prenatal care. State surveillance data indicate that those at highest risk of inadequate prenatal care are adolescents and women who are marginalized due to substance use, recent immigration, homelessness, or mental illness. The New York State Department of Health used a participatory approach in developing the program, identifying trust as the major variable in the social marketing exchange. For the communications components, the Department's consultants involved high-risk women first in qualitative research to identify the best messages, materials and methods for reaching their peers in the community, and then in quantitative research to identify the most influential combination of messages and images to be used. Evaluation demonstrated that the campaign, especially the use of radio, is effective in reaching the highest-risk pregnant women and linking them to a comprehensive user-friendly system of care.