Latino Diabetes Awareness Program
MULTICULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS
CHALLENGE
To Educate, Inform and Empower Latinos in California with the Crucial Information Needed to Recognize the Symptoms of Diabetes and Access to Treatments
Latinos represent one of the ethnic populations most at risk for developing diabetes. To address this issue, Perry Communications Group designed, researched, wrote, edited and produced an eight-page, color, tabloid-size publication, which provided updated, relevant and culturally appropriate information and resources about diabetes, its symptoms and the treatments available to California’s Latino community.
SOLUTION
Design and Produce Spanish and English Versions of the Publication to Reach Target Audience
Perry Communications Group determined that there was a high demand for both Spanish and English copies of the publication and in turn designed and produced it in both languages. As with many minority groups throughout California, the Latino community relies heavily on its own sources of information. Knowing this, Perry Communications Group published the piece as an insert in La Opinion, which has been a trusted source of information for Spanish-speaking Latinos in Southern California since its first edition in 1926 (in a recent study funded by the California Endowment, nearly 82 percent of California Latinos said they get most of their information about medical care from Spanish-language news media). We also identified and secured partnerships with the California Diabetes Project and the National Council of La Raze (NCLR California) to distribute the insert throughout the state (the California Diabetes Project is one of five top-performing state diabetes programs in the nation. And NCLR is the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States dedicated to health and education).
RESULT
Overcame Cultural Barriers and Effectively Reached and Educated Latinos in California about the Risks of Diabetes
- Perry Communications Group produced and delivered a linguistically and culturally relevant message for Latinos in California, that overcame the cultural barriers that kept information and messages about diabetes from effectively reaching Latinos in the past. We did not simply translate a piece into Spanish, but instead developed the entire message in Spanish from start to finish.
- The publication was delivered through long-trusted sources in the Latino community: Latino patients, doctors, health care providers, experts and print media.
- Published as an insert in La Opinion, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in California, on December 15, 2005, the piece reached nearly 500,000 readers in Southern California. The entire content of the eight-page supplement was also posted on La Opinion’s Web site at www.laopinion.com and has generated more than 100,000 hits.
- Additionally, partnered with third-party organizations to distribute 50,000 printed Spanish copies and 50,000 printed English copies in key locations throughout California, thus expanding the publication’s reach to the target at risk population and strengthening the client’s position in California’s Latino diabetes community.
