Evaluating FASD-Specific Public Health and Education Materials
This team has been engaged in identifying all materials prepared or distributed in Canada Northwest on the topic of primary prevention of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). This includes, but is not exclusive to, media, posters, videotapes, pamphlets, brochures, and "reminders" such as lapel pins, drink coasters or pens. It includes materials designed for the general public, as well as those that target specific demographics or professional groups. To date, approximately 350 resources have been found and collected. The team prepared an evaluation report to:
- identify what has been effective;
- identify research questions relating to the effectiveness of FASD resources in primary prevention;
- and to develop research proposals for funding FASD prevention research.
The report highlights that while awareness and knowledge of FASD has increased over the course of these prevention campaigns, very little is known about whether this increased awareness has had an impact on the prevention of FASD.
Research Activities
Our team is exploring the use of Social Marketing in FASD primary prevention. Social marketing combines awareness messaging with an accessible, community based intervention which incorporates principles of behaviour change theory to create successful health promotion campaigns. We are also working on the development a FASD Social Marketing Toolkit for communities and applying for funding to undertake a multi-year research project. The team is currently conducting the following FASD primary prevention research:
- Conversations with Women – our team has been conducting one-to-one interviews and online discussion sessions with women from across western Canada. We are talking to these women about alcohol use prior to, and during pregnancy, and exploring how to successfully create opportunities to abstain from alcohol use during pregnancy.
- Coding of FASD Prevention Materials – our team undertook a large-scale project to code FAS prevention materials from across four English-speaking countries; Canada, the United States, England, and Australia. At this time, women in our target audience are coding these resources so that we can better understand how the messages and images in the resources impact these women. The main objective of this project is to determine how to create more effective FASD prevention strategies.
- Assessing Effectiveness of FASD Prevention Messages – we are currently collecting feedback from women across western Canada about potential FASD prevention messages. These messages are developed based on the principles of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT). The main objective of this project is to better understand how the combination of PMT variables in each message impact the participants.
Publications
Thurmeier, R., Deshpande, S., Lavack, A., Agrey, N., & Cismaru, M. (2011). Next steps in FASD primary prevention in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: Management and Policy Perspectives of FASD (eds E.P. Riley, S. Clarren, J. Weinberg, and E. Jonsson) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinhein, Germany, pp. 175-192. Link to publication
Cismaru, M., Deshpande, S., Thurmeier, R., Lavack, A., & Agrey, N. (2010). “Preventing fetal alcohol spectrum disorder: The role of protection motivation theory," Health Marketing Quarterly, 27, 66-85. Link to download
Saskatchewan Prevention Institute. (2009). Creating effective primary
prevention FASD resources: Evaluation processes in health promotion.
Prepared for Canada Northwest FASD Research Network, Saskatoon, SK.
Contact Information
Sameer Deshpande, Lead, sameer.deshpande@uleth.ca
Magdalena Cismaru, Co-Lead,
magdalena.cismaru@uregina.ca
Robin Thurmeier, Project Coordinator, robin.thurmeier@live.ca
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