hhc final paper

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Table of Contents

I. Executive Summary……………………….…………………………………3-4

II. Introduction……………………………………………………………...……4-5

Oswego County Health Department……….……………………………………...4

Healthy Highway………………………………………………….…………....…4

Situation Analysis……………………………………..………………………......4

Target Audience………………………………………………………………...…5

Topic Proposal………………………………………………………………….…5

III. Research………………………………………………………………...……5-13

Literature Review……………………………………………...………………….6

In-depth Interview……………………………………………………………...…8

Focus Group………………………………………..……………………………11

Online Survey……………………………………………………………………12

IV. Goals, Objectives, Tactics…………………………………………...……13-14

V. Strategy.……………………………………………………………..………14-15

Health Belief Model……………………………………………...………………14

VI. Evaluation Plan………………………………………………………………. 16

VII. References.………………………………………………………………………17

VIII. Appendix.……………………………………………………………………18-27 A. In-depth Interview Guide……………………………………………………18

B. Survey Questionnaire………………………….…………………………19-20

C. Print Materials for Focus Group…………………………………………21-23

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D. Focus Group Moderators Guide………………………….…………………24

E. The Health Belief Model…………………………………………………….25

F. Follow-Up Interview Guide…………………………………………………26

G. Evaluation Survey…………………………………………………...………27

IX. Campaign Materials………………………………………...………………28-44

A. Healthy Highway Brochure………………………………………………28-29

B. Health Brochure………………………………………………………..…30-31

C. Social Media Calendar……………………………………………………32-34

D. Online Flyer for OCHD Facebook……………………………………...……35

E. News Release…………………………………………………………...……36

F. Recipe Cards…………………………………………………...…………37-40

G. Rewards Chart……………………………………………..…………………41

H. Bulletin Board……………………………………..…………………………43

I. Informative Presentation…………………………….……………………43-44

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I. Executive Summary

The Oswego County Health Department (OCHD) works to protect and preserve the health of the people of Oswego County. The OCHD is well known in the community for years of constant public health education and outreach. The high obesity rate in Oswego County among elementary aged children has been one of their main focuses. The Healthy Highway program is part of the physical education curriculum at some of the elementary schools in Oswego County. The program aids in educating children on how to live a healthy lifestyle by teaching them the nutritional value of food, proper consumption, and the need for physical activity. Traffic metaphors and signs are used as analogies to help children understand the concepts and to encourage them to participate in a fun way. Although this program is being taught in school, teachers have no control whether those lessons are being implemented at home. The research that was conducted showed that not many parents are aware of the Healthy Highway program, which hinders its effectiveness. Through the help of our campaign, we intend to raise awareness of the Healthy Highway program among parents and increase the amount of healthy-living interactions between parents and children. Overall, we intend to generate more knowledge of the program among parents and more engagement between the parents and children. At out first meeting with our client it was decided that our target audience for this campaign are the opinion leaders in the community and the parents of the elementary school children in Oswego. To gather the necessary research on which methods are best to effectively reach our target audience, we conducted a focus group with the members of the Home and School Board of Leighton Elementary School. In addition to the focus group, we surveyed parents of elementary school children. Those findings provided us with the information necessary to create materials to reach out to parents and community leaders. The three main goals for this campaign are to increase support of the Healthy Highway Campaign among the Oswego County parents of elementary aged children, to increase awareness of the Healthy Highway campaign among parents in Oswego County through social media, and to increase participation of a healthy lifestyle at home among Oswego County parents of elementary aged children. Our strategies will serve as the structure for this campaign. To reach out to parents and community leaders in the future, we created two informative brochures, an integrated social media calendar, a news release, recipe cards and a PowerPoint presentation. These materials will be shared with community leaders and parents at meetings, at school and through the Healthy Highway Facebook page.

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The evaluation plan consists of follow-up surveys for the parents and opinion leaders, in-depth interviews with the opinion leaders, and social media analytics. This data will provide valuable insight as to where the biggest opportunities are for improvement. Overall, this campaign will generate awareness of the Healthy Highway program and remind parents of the importance of a healthy lifestyle for their children and family. II. Introduction Oswego County Health Department Oswego County Health Department (OCHD) works to inform, protect, and preserve the health of its citizens. The OCHD has conducted multiple campaigns that work to inform the public on dangers of certain health hazards, including Ebola virus, diabetes, and teen smoking. While providing the facts about these topics, they also give alternative options that could help prevent or reduce issues that local community members suffer from. Healthy Highway Healthy Highway is a program that not only fights childhood obesity but also teaches healthy habits as a preventative measure. The Healthy Highway campaign is currently running in two elementary schools in Oswego County, Minetto Elementary and Charles E. Riley Elementary. The Healthy Highway Program is described as a program that empowers children to make healthy dietary choices through the use of educationally sound concepts by using fun imaginative “Traffic” metaphors (Healthy Highway, 2012). The Healthy Highway curriculum had been introduced to the schools and has been put into the school curriculum and into the school cafeteria menus in order to ensure that students are aware of what they are fueling their bodies with. Using traffic metaphors to help drive healthy habits are a large part of the program. Educators inform the student of these campaign principles and hope the lessons to have an impact outside of the classroom as well. Situation Analysis According to the Oswego County Community Health Assessment, Oswego County has the highest student obesity rate in New York State (38 percent for elementary, middle, and high school combined). After discussing with our client, they informed us of a program that not only fights childhood obesity but also teaches healthy habits as a preventative measure. Our clients proposed that we join the “Healthy Highway” program that is currently running in two Oswego County Elementary Schools, Minetto Elementary and Charles E. Riley Elementary. The problem the OCHD and Healthy Highway is facing is that students are only in school for eight hours a day, our concern is the lack of implementation outside of school. For a lifestyle campaign to be effective, the ideas and practices of it need to be continuous. The parents of these children are less aware of the program, which hinders its effectiveness.

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Target Audience Parents of elementary aged children and community leaders in Oswego are the target audience for this campaign. The Oswego County Health Department has made it explicit to us that the overall goal for this campaign is to have children continue healthy eating outside of the classroom. Teachers are educating children on the Healthy Highway Program in school but have no control whether those lessons are being implemented at home. Having parents on board ensures the same mission will be encouraged to eat healthy inside and outside of the classroom. Topic Proposal This research seeks to explore the awareness of the Healthy Highway Campaign and the participation of at-home-health-education with parents and elementary aged children in Oswego County. The results of this campaign will be shared with the Oswego County Health Department. In order to find out the awareness of the campaign along with the participation of at-home-health-education, we used a variety of research methods. We used secondary research to perform a literature review of similar campaigns. This secondary research has been done to gather more information about at home health education between parents and their elementary aged children. The research will also provide further information about the target population. To further define the situation analysis, examination of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats will be performed. We conducted in-depth interviews with opinion leaders. We distributed a printed survey to administrators at SUNY Oswego who are parents of elementary aged children. We also administered an online survey by posting to social media and sharing using email in order to gather quantifiable information regarding awareness and participation. After completing our research, based on our research findings, our team developed a comprehensive plan for the Healthy Highway Campaign. Our plan will increase awareness of the Healthy Highway Campaign to the parents of the participating elementary schools. It also seeks to establish kid-friendly, hands on participation of at-home-health-education between parents and children in Oswego County. III. Research To start our research, secondary research was conducted by performing a situation analysis, literature review, and case analysis of similar campaigns. This secondary research has been done to gather more information about at home health education between parents and their elementary aged children. The research will also provide further information about the target population. To further define the situation analysis, examination of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats will be performed. The next step in the research plan has been to conduct in-depth interviews with opinion leaders. We found that members of the ‘Home & School’ committee, educators, and administration in participating schools would act as effective influencers for the

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campaign. In the interviews we discussed the campaign’s key messages, shared research findings, and exchanged program ideas. The interviews gave these opinion leaders the opportunity to share techniques, strategies, and advice on how to effectively reach parents for this, such as motivation and communication tactics. Our next step was to conduct a survey of the target population. The survey determined the public’s level of awareness of the Healthy Highway program, healthy options, and willingness to participation. The survey also determined amount of the public’s preferred method of communication. Literature Review A portion of our research consisted of analyzing at-home-health-education with parents and children. We examined five completed or ongoing campaigns to analyze past research, actions, communication, and evaluations that were used to increase the parent participation and knowledge of healthy eating and physical activity with their children. The content analysis helped us form our research methods, objectives and goals, program planning, appropriate media and materials to ensure a successful delivery to our target audience, and evaluation processes. The five campaigns we analyzed targeting the parents of elementary-aged students were: Healthy Schools Campaign, Let’s Move, Kids Eat Right, The National Go for 2&5™, and Sustain Children’s Food. The Healthy Schools Campaign (HSC) is an independent, non-for-profit, with the objective to advocate for policies and practices that allow all students, teachers, and staff to learn and work in a healthy school environment (HSC, 2012). Similar to the goal of the Healthy Highway Campaign (HHC), HSC was able to successfully shape children’s lifelong learning and health with the target of parents. This campaign created a program specifically targeting parents titled “Parents United for Healthy Schools.” This program consisted of webinars focused on the powerful role that parents play in creating healthy school environments, healthy cooking classes, and fitness classes that ensure students are provided with the opportunity for after-school physical activity. This, in turn, brought a healthy lifestyle back to the student's home-life and inspired parents to promote consistent healthy living. A strength of HSC is that they have an extremely organized and informative website that makes it accessible for parents to reference at all times. The Let’s Move! Campaign, launched by First Lady Michelle Obama, is specifically focused on childhood obesity. This campaign created a program called “MyPlate” which was meant to serve as a quick reminder to help prioritize food choices. MyPlate is similar to “red, yellow and green foods” in the HHC. MyPlate shows the importance of a well-balanced meal by reminding children to make half of their plate fruits and vegetables (Let’s Move! 2010). The Let’s Move! Campaign saw huge commitments from parents to help better the health of children. This is critical to Oswego County Health Department because it shows how to successfully launch a visual program for healthy eating starting in elementary schools. A strength of the Let’s Move! Campaign is that the website

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provides parents with thousands of nutritious recipes, popular cooking websites, and a pinterest page. These links give parents a quick call-to-action, rather than just a suggestion. The Kids Eat Right campaign was launched to support public education projects and programs that address the national health concern of obesity among children (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2015). The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation Kids Eat Right objective is to provide resources to assist members in working with schools and communities to help kids eat better and move more (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2015). Kids Eat Right is a two-tiered campaign aimed to mobilize members to participate in community and school childhood obesity prevention efforts, as well as to educate families, communities, and policy makers about the importance of quality nutrition (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2015). Kids Eat Right provides members with the resources to become more recognized leaders in childhood obesity prevention and to raise the awareness of the need to help children meet their nutrient requirements (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2015). This program’s resources consist of webinars to educate Academy members and members of the public on the vital role teachers and parents have in nutritional education. In addition, The Kids Eat Right website has healthy eating tips and news for kids of every age. The American Academy of Pediatrics' consumer-oriented website, HealthyChildren.org, is the only parenting website backed by 60,000 pediatricians committed to the attainment of optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2015). This website contains links to newsletters, including handouts, toolkits, workshops, webinars, and other information. The resources that the website provides encourages parents to be engaged in healthy eating at home. For example, the website provides a video titled “Build a Healthy Sandwich,” which shows a registered dietician and two children demonstrating how to make a quick, easy and economical option for lunch or dinner. The website also provides relevant and informative articles for parents such as “4 Fall Foods for Your Family.” This website is a great example that HHC can reference regarding what they should offer parents, seeing that HealthyChildren.org has been widely recognized for its success. The Go for 2&5™ campaign aimed to help Australian parents encourage their children to increase daily consumption of fruit and vegetables. This campaign has delivered positive results within Western Australia, and is endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO). The target audience for this campaign was parents and caretakers of children and youth zero to seventeen years, children between five and twelve, and youth aged thirteen to seventeen. They key objective was to raise awareness of the necessary combination of healthy eating and physical activity to promote good health in children.

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The resources that the Go for 2&5™ campaign chose was comprised of national public relations activities in order to support the media advertising and support materials including a consumer booklet, poster and recipe cards, fact sheets, and print advertisements, all of which are great resources that HCH intends on creating for their target audience. A great strength to this campaign is that the website, links each support materials in category on their website, making everything easily accessible for parents. The Sustain Children’s Food Campaigns’ mission is to protect children from junk food marketing, provide better school food and food skills, and reduce children’s sugar consumption. This campaign believes that children need to receive proper food education to ensure that they are able to choose and prepare a healthy diet, and this must be incorporated into the school curriculum (Sustain, 2015). These beliefs and goals are similar to those of the HHC. There are a large number of individuals who lack basic dietary skills and education. In 2005, a survey by the British Heart Foundation found that 37 % of children aged eight to fourteen years did not know that cheese was made from milk, and that 36 % could not identify the main ingredient in chips, with answers including oil, egg and apples (Blythman, 2006). People are unaware of where their food comes from, how it is produced, what constitutes a balanced diet, and are unable to prepare healthy food for themselves (Sustain, 2015). Caraher reported that a number of studies have shown increased fruit and vegetable consumption among child and adult participants in food skills clubs/classes. Though few effective studies have been completed, food skills lessons do have an apparent effect on improving the diets of participants. Practical food growing, through school gardens or window boxes, helps reinforce education on a healthy diet, introducing children to new types of fruit and vegetables, and encourages outdoor activity and environmental awareness (Sustain, 2015). The research provided by this campaign supports the objective that healthy food education among students is extremely important, which in turn, supports the HHC’s mission. The solutions that the Children’s Food Campaign came up with revolve around the thought that all schools need helped to developing their food education. Also, students should have the opportunity to take part in growing project, learn cooking skills, and study food and farming issues (Sustain, 2015). The Children’s Food Campaign suggests that parents involved in a food-growing project that works with children. Also, those parents persuade their children’s school to make food skills more central to the curriculum, as well as create a web-based link where they can pick up tips. These suggestions are all strategies the HHC intends on using to increase parents’ involvement. Interviews Focusing on the parents of elementary aged students in Oswego County, we began by interviewing opinion leaders. (Interview Guide at Appendix A) Our group defined opinion leaders as well known individuals or organizations that have an important influence

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within the local community on public opinion. We looked for individuals or organizations that are greatly involved with the elementary schools and/or parents with elementary aged children within the community. We began by reaching out to Michelle Blandla, an employee for SUNY Oswego, a parent of elementary aged children, a member of Minetto Elementary Home and School Association, and classroom homeroom parent. This opinion leader provided her suggestions on how to effectively reach parents for this campaign in order to raise awareness on how to increase parent involvement. Before informing Blandla of any detailed information regarding the Healthy Highway Campaign, we asked her if she had any prior knowledge of any such program. Her first response was “No.” After explaining the mission statement and what the campaign does within Minetto and Riley Elementary Schools, Blandla then stated “I think I might have heard the ‘Red Light, Yellow Light, Green Light’ expression before from my kids.” We then gave her the opportunity to discuss her views regarding the importance of diet, such as food options and exercise, with her children and household. She explained to us that her household is currently focusing on nutrition and losing weight. They do this by limiting the times they eat out, and watch what they eat at home. Blandla stated, “It is very important to me that my family sits down for dinner at night, where we all eat a healthy meal together.” We also presented our ideas of using printed materials. Blandla was concerned that there was too much information, and that it was quite lengthy, which made her worry that parents would not read it carefully enough. However, she had a very positive reaction towards the recipe card notion. She felt this was a great way to get parents involved at home. Her advice for the recipe cards was to make sure they were kid friendly and simple, not too many ingredients, not too many steps, and not a long prep and cook time. She also presented us with additional ideas for the recipe cards: to have the children create a recipe box where they can keep these recipes cards they bring home. With her expertise, Michelle informed us of the many different Internet media outlets, used by the parents of children in Oswego County. These different Facebook pages and blogs are available to us and can be used for research and programming purposes. During the interview, Michelle used her office computer to bring up the “Oswego Healthy Kids” Facebook page and the “Minetto Home & School” Facebook page. We used these pages to see what the parents of Oswego County are discussing. After conducting this interview with Blandla, we knew it was essential to make use of the available Internet media outlets of Facebook and blogs used by the parents in Oswego County. We also reached out to Leighton Elementary School’s Home and School Association, an organization that supports the school and its families by participating in planning, volunteering, and informing by way of meeting with parents throughout the school year. The organization consists of an estimated thirty members, including a President, Vice

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President, Treasurer, Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, and an Officer at Large. We arranged an interview with the Home and School Association’s President, Jackie Wallace. We presented her with our key campaign messages, and had the opportunity to share our research findings. This interview gave this particular opinion leader the opportunity to provide her suggestions on how to effectively reach parents for this campaign, such as incentive, and communication tools and skills. Since the Healthy Highway Campaign is not taking place in this elementary school, the first task was to take was to articulate what the Healthy Highway Campaign entails. We also explained the mission statement and gave an explanation of what the campaign does within Minetto and Riley Elementary Schools. We showed promotional and informative materials, and explained printed materials were created to target parents of elementary aged children. When showing Wallace our printed materials and discussing our goals, she advised us to be more “eye-catching” with the materials by adding more color and pictures. She explained that it is important to include visuals that appeal to both parents and children in order to create the motivation needed to read and participate. She also felt that adding prices of needed ingredients for the provided recipe on the back of the recipe cards would be highly beneficial. She also suggested that we should think about terminology; keep the language simple because anything too lengthy would probably not be read. Additionally, we scheduled a time to attend one of the organization’s meetings with Jackie Wallace. We arranged to perform one-on-one interviews with members, along with discussing key messages of our campaign, presenting our goals and objectives, and our updated potential materials to the group as a whole. The focus group meeting is scheduled for November 4th. The contacts and resources we gained from the interviews with opinion leaders were crucial to help conduct further research. In addition to the in-depth interviews, a printed survey was distributed on SUNY Oswego campus to administrators who are parents of elementary aged children. (Printed survey represented in Appendix B) We received six responses and entered the data into the IBM statistical software system, SPSS. From there we were able to pick up on some trends shown in the descriptive frequency analysis. From the results we gathered that most of the respondents were unaware of the Healthy Highway Campaign, but expressed that they place high importance on health in their households. Of the respondents, four out of six claimed to be unaware of the healthy highway program and the two that are aware were exposed to it online or heard from another parent. Five out of six said they would be motivated to improve the health of their families and placed high importance on the topic. Child’s fitness levels were also important to the respondents.

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When asked how the respondents would like to learn about and utilize the campaign, they were interested in printed material sent home with children weekly or monthly. Most would like to receive emails monthly and some were interested in posts on the school website. Most respondents expressed their willingness to talk about healthier options at home, consider food intake more, look for healthier options while shopping for food, and participate in at-home education with recipes. When asked if recipe cards would be of interest, all respondents answered “yes.” Most of then had also read flyers about the campaign. From these results, it became clear that continued push for awareness of the campaign amongst parents was of interest to us. In addition, we gained better insight about how parents like to be contacted and what actions they would be willing to take to help promote health at home. Focus Group Our team also conducted research by testing slogans, theme ideas, and printed materials (Appendix C) in a focus group. Our focus group consisted of 12 parents and 6 board members of the Leighton Elementary School’s Home and School organization. The focus group helped solidify our teams’ decision to implement the use social media and update printed material to reach our target audience. Before we conducted this focus group we created a moderators guide (Appendix D) to direct the conversation. The focus group showed that only two individuals in the whole meeting heard about Healthy Highway before. When asked about the Healthy Highway brochure and the health fact brochure that was handed out, participants spoke up and said there were too many words. Majority of the group agreed that there is too much text to get to the real meaning of the campaign. They also said there is too much text in the health fact brochure, which turned them off from reading it. They also disliked how this brochure has three pages, and mentioned how a brochure should consist of only three pages. They would prefer Oswego County Health Department (OCHD) to focus on the red, yellow and green light instead. Many of them stated that they are busy parents and the first page has to be catchier or it will be pushed off to the side. All of them agreed that the logo was fine. The main theme regarding the brochures was to make them simpler and easier to read. When the group was asked about the best ways to reach out to OCHD’s target public, all of them agreed to strictly do it electronically. Everyone said that they prefer getting information through Facebook than pieces of paper in their children’s take home folders. Most of them really liked the idea of posts with health facts and exercise facts. There were two printed out ideas and they said it was simple and eye-catching. Their thoughts on the idea of recipe cards strongly leaned towards making them simpler. After they were handed out, a few people spoke up and said a lot of families in Oswego

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County do not have access to some of the ingredients. That is something huge to take into consideration because that is OCHD’s target public. Most of the women in the group said they are busy moms and do not have time to prepare in-depth meals. They would all prefer something small, such as a snack food that is quick and fun. Towards the end, they added that they would like a picture listing out red, yellow and green foods. They also advised to check out TheProduceMom.com. Online Survey The printed survey (Appendix B) was also used for an online survey and was distributed using social media sites and shared through email. The data were collected electronically and analyzed. The online survey was a way for our group to reach individuals/ households at once. Since the survey was shareable, it was able to reach a larger range of demographics within Oswego County. The survey was posted to the Oswego Healthy Kids Facebook page, and the Minetto Home and School Facebook page. Using email, the survey was sent to the opinion leaders from our in-depth interviews, Michelle Blandla and Jackie Wallace, who were able to forward the survey link. The survey posted to media sites and shared using email received 22 results. We used SurveyMonkey.com and IBM statistical software system, SPSS to analyze the data. The online survey was distributed through Facebook posts in specific groups that included parents from the target audience. These included feelings, regarding different forms of communication, awareness of the Healthy Highway program, and what parents are willing to do with their children, to promote this program at home. The online/offline survey questionnaires are attached at the appendix. Our first question stated, ‘Have you ever heard of the ‘Healthy Highway’ Campaign?” with the options of yes or no. After reviewing the results we found that only 18% of parents had heard about the campaign while 81% did not know about the Healthy Highway Campaign. Secondly, we wanted to know if they had seen information about the Healthy Highway Campaign, including flyers sent home with children (0%), children informing parents (9.5%), visuals in school (9.5%), information from other parents (0%), and their knowledge of the Healthy Highway Campaign (80%). When questioned about what would motivate them and their families to choose healthier options, the survey showed that improving family health in general would motivate 86% of families. 40% percent would participate to improve their child’s/ children’s fitness. When asked about the best way to catch parent’s attention and influence them to increase knowledge about the Healthy Highway Campaign, 86% said that handouts sent home with their children would be the preferred way to reach them, while 59% of parents said a personal email would be effective. Lastly 27% said that posts to the school’s website would be most beneficial.

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Regarding Healthy Highway campaigns updates 64% of participants felt that a monthly update by way of handout in children's folders would be the most effective way of reminding to continue to participate in the Healthy Highway activities, whereas 45% of participants would want weekly updates through emails. Lastly, we asked which type of materials parents would prefer. 95% of participants said that they would read “recipe cards” sent home with their children. Secondly, 63% said that informational flyers would be effective. Also, 53% said they would read facts sheet if they were sent home. Only 18% said that advertisements in local shopping centers would be effective. The online survey was used to gain a better understanding of what the awareness levels of the Healthy Highway Campaign were among parents who have children in Oswego County and what would be the best way to get adults more engaged in the program. The key findings from the online survey were that the Healthy Highway Campaign was not known to 80% of the participants of the survey and that the only information they received about the program was either from their child or visuals in school. We also found that the best way to reach parents is through paper handouts that are sent home with their children in their school issued folders. In these handouts there would be information on the Healthy Highway Campaign including recipe cards that coincide with the program. Lastly, most participants said that they would pay more attention to the program if it benefited their families’ health both child and adults. IV. Goals and Objectives, and Tactics Goal #1: To increase support of the Healthy Highway Campaign among the Oswego County parents of elementary aged children.

Objective #1: To educate at least four opinion leaders in Oswego County about the Healthy Highway Campaign by March, such as principals, teachers, Home and School Board members and bloggers.

Tactic #1: Create informative presentation to show at community meetings Tactic #2: Create an educational brochure for the Healthy Highway Program

Goal #2: To increase awareness of the Healthy Highway campaign among parents in Oswego County through social media.

Objective #1: To drive 300 likes to the Healthy Highway Facebook page by March 2016.

Tactic #1: Using the OCHD Facebook, post the link to the Healthy Highway Facebook weekly.

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Tactic #2: Provide the Healthy Highway Facebook link into the printed materials of brochures and recipe cards.

Objective #2: To enhance the social media presence of the Healthy Highway Campaign by 20 percent by March 2016.

Tactic #1: To create an integrated social media calendar for the Healthy Highway Facebook page for the month of January consisting of 30 postable materials.

Objective #3: To create positive interactions and feedback on the two Facebook pages by Oswego County parents of elementary aged children by May 2016.

Tactic #1: Create healthy and friendly posts for the facebook.

Goal #3: To increase participation of a healthy lifestyle at home among Oswego County parents of elementary aged children.

Objective #1: To increase participation of at home activities between parents and children by 20% by May 2016.

Tactic #1: Create simple healthy recipe cards to be dispersed amongst parents through handouts and social media posts.

Tactic #2: Create Healthy Highway bulletin boards in each school, for which families can bring in pictures of a recipe they made with their child. Tactic #3: Create a Healthy Highway rewards chart for families to keep on their fridge at home. Each time a child eats healthy at home they get a star on the chart next to the green light.

Objective #2: To educate at least 40 Oswego County parents about the importance of healthy lifestyle by March 2016.

Tactic #1: Create 2 educational brochures related to children’s health and the Healthy Highway Program

Tactic #2: Creating a news release that will be printed in the Oswego County Newspaper both online and in print.

V. Strategy Healthy Belief Model The HBM has been applied to all study all types of health behavior. A person's motivation to undertake a health behavior can be divided into three main categories: individual perceptions, modifying behaviors, and likelihood of action. Individual perceptions are factors that affect the perception of illness or disease; they deal with the

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importance of health to the individual, perceived susceptibility, and perceived severity. The likelihood of action discusses factors in probability of appropriate health behavior; it is the likelihood of taking the recommended preventive health action (Appendix E). This model has helped us shape our strategies through demonstrating how humans think when it comes to doing something new. Showing the thought process of humans when it comes to a healthy lifestyle and how they weigh the benefits and cost of living a healthy lifestyle. Having a strategy that shows the incentives of being healthier and also encourages it will help overcome the barriers of the Healthy Highway Campaign. The first strategy would be to promote awareness amongst parents with informational materials. After primary research was conducted it was found that many parents were unaware of what this campaign taught to their children in school. It is necessary to educate parents about the campaign’s key messages along with ways in which it can be implemented at home. A description of the Healthy Highway campaign would be included in these materials. For example, which foods are red light, green light, yellow light and examples will be represented on fliers and in a brochure. In order to generating news amongst our target audience, this strategy provides ways for which parents and children can document these principals at home while receiving recognition at school. An example of this would be pictures of homemade recipes created by families at home and displayed on bulletin boards in the participating schools. Certain benefits of healthy eating would be included in the awareness of the campaign in order to persuade the audience to participate in at-home activities. The Facebook page, flyers and brochure will be providing healthy eating facts, healthy eating recipes, and healthy snack ideas. For example a “healthy fact” facebook post will include 5 benefits of increasing water consumption. This relates the campaign to real life choices involved in maintaining a healthy diet. Health costs of unhealthy eating would also be described to parents of school-aged children in the community. This would entail facts about common unhealthy foods, food comparison charts, and statistics provided by facebook posts, flyers and in a brochure. In order to gain audience interest, the aim to prevent child obesity in this county will be addressed. Oswego County has the second highest obesity rate among school-aged children in the state and one of the highest in the country. The aim would be to provide reason enough for families to want to make a change if necessary. The themes of the messages would surround the idea of continuing Healthy Highway ideals at home. The task is to promote the implementation of the campaign’s core principals in a child’s home-life as well as in school. Throughout the programming stage, the message of “Healthy Highway at home” will be spread to affiliated families. There will be healthy dietary recommendations provided for parents to increase audience participation. Using Facebook posts, flyers and a brochure to promote this theme, examples of actions that can be taken outside of school will be provided.

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VI. Evaluation Plan Interviews will be conducted with opinion leaders who receive scheduled informative presentations. The effectiveness of these presentations will be measured by interviews done with the opinion leaders two weeks after the presentation dates. The questions that will be asked at each interview will be in order to gain insight on the amount of knowledge retained and shared amongst the target audience through each opinion leader. (Appendix F) The interview session also seeks to uncover if other community members were informed of the program and if any plans to encourage participation at home have been implemented. Social media objectives will be measured and evaluated by using the Facebook analytics tool, Sproutsocial. This tool will supply metrics on audience growth, impressions, and engagement by demographic and location. Specifically, this tool will show which content has been most successful in resonating with our audience by displaying the number of clicks, shares, and likes for each post. This tool will also generate a report and graph to create a comprehensive overview of the Healthy Highways social media presence. This data will provide valuable insight as to where the biggest opportunities are for improvement. The use of the bulletin board in Charles E. Riley and Minetto Elementary Schools will be used to evaluate if there is participation of the Healthy Highway Campaign at home. At the end of each week there will be as assessment of the number of submissions on the board, along with recording the names of the students whose picture was received. This will represent the level of participation at home, how many homes are participating each week, if the same homes are consistently participating, and if there is an increase or decrease in the homes participating as time progresses.

A survey will be distributed (Appendix G) through e-mail at the end of the campaign’s cycle to evaluate the amount of awareness and importance of a healthy lifestyle is to parents through the use of Healthy Highway. SurveyMonkey.com and IBM statistical software system, SPSS will be used to analyze the data. This will provide results to compare to the first survey conducted in the primary research to show if there is an increase from the 18% aware and 81% unaware of the campaign. This survey will also provide feedback on if the goals of the campaign reached its target through its specified objectives and tactics.

17

VI. References

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. (2015). Kids eat right. Retrieved October 25, 2015,

from eat right Pro- Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics website:

http://www.eatrightfoundation.org/Foundation/content.aspx?id=6442483947

Australian Goverment Department of Health. (2008, November 10). Welcome to the go

for2&5™ website. Retrieved October 25, 2015, from

http://www.healthyactive.gov.au/internet/healthyactive/publishing.nsf/Content/2a

nd5

Healthy schools campaign. (2012). Retrieved October 25, 2015, from

http://www.healthyschoolscampaign.org/

Let's move- America's move to raise a healthier generation of kids. (n.d.). Retrieved

October 25, 2015, from Let's move website: http://www.letsmove.gov/

Sustain. (2015). Sustain- the alliance for better food and farming. Retrieved October 25,

2015, from http://www.sustainweb.org/childrensfoodcampaign/

Welcome to the healthy highway. (2011). Retrieved October 25, 2015, from Healthy

Highway- the green light to good health website: http://www.healthy-

highway.com/

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VIII. Appendix

Appendix A In-depth Interview Guide

I. Introduction/Background A. Introduce ourselves B. Briefly describe Healthy Highway campaign

1. Where it takes place 2. Goals 3. What is done in schools

C. Explain our part in the campaign II. Discussion Topics

• Awareness of Healthy Highway Campaign Q1: Have you heard about the campaign? Q2: What do you know about the campaign? Q3: Do you know the reasoning behind the campaign? Q4: Do you feel the campaign’s ideals are relevant and useful?

• Effective means of communication Q1: How do you prefer to receive information from the school? Q2: Do you check your email often? Q3: Do you check the school website often?

• Effective communication materials Q1: What materials grab your attention the most? Q2: Do you use social media sites often? If so, which sites?

• Interest in implementation of Healthy Highway Principles at home Q1: Would you be interested in implementing healthy highway practices

in your home? Q2: Would you be interested in using healthy highway approved recipes in

your home? • Struggles with practicing healthy diets at home

Q1: Do you feel it is difficult to maintain a healthy diet for your family? Q2: Do you have struggles associated with purchasing/consuming healthy

food? III. Closing

A. Offer opportunity for any final comments, concerns, ideas. B. Ask/confirm they are going to help distribute surveys and how

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Appendix B

Survey Questionnaire

Section A: Healthy Highway Campaign

1. Have you ever seen or heard of the “Healthy Highway Campaign”? □ yes □ no

At Q1, if you answer “Yes”, please answer the questions in the box below. If not, please move to the Section C, Q2.

Section B. Healthy Highway

1A. How have you heard or seen about Healthy Highway? (a) Flyers sent home with child (b) Children informing (c) Visuals in school (d) Online (e) Other parents

Section C. Getting Involved

2. What would motivate you to get you and your family to eat and choose healthier options? (Check all that apply) □ Lose control-weight □ Improve health of family in general □ To improve kids fitness □ To influence others □ Kids asking for involvement

How important are these selected reasons? (Check only for the selected reasons) Not at all Very Important 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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3. What would catch your attention and influence you to increase knowledge on the Healthy Highway campaign and aware of healthier options at home? (Check all that apply) □ Printed materials sent home with child □ Emails sent to personal email □ Posts to school website 4. What actions will you be willing to take? (Check all that apply) □ Talk about healthier options at home □ Think about amount of each food you intake □ Look for healthier options when shopping □ Participate in “at home” education for healthier options to children □ Participate in healthier recipes at home if given them 5. Out of these forms, what would you read? (Check all that apply) □ Recipe cards for healthy meal/snack □ Flyers □ Fact Sheets □ Advertisements in shopping centers

How frequently would you want to receive these materials or updates? Never Daily Weekly Monthly Never Daily Weekly Monthly Never Daily Weekly Monthly How frequently would you take these actions? Never Daily Weekly Monthly Never Daily Weekly Monthly Never Daily Weekly Monthly Never Daily Weekly Monthly Never Daily Weekly Monthly

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Appendix C Print Materials used for Focus Group Feedback

a. Print ideas for recipe cards and Facebook post

Why Go for 2&5®?Eating plenty of fruit and vegetables can help protect against heart disease, type 2 diabetes, some cancers and help maintain a healthy weight. It also helps reduce blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels and improves diabetes control. It is recommended adults eat at least 2 serves of fruit and 5 serves of vegetables every day. So be sure to serve your family lots of fruit, vegies and bush tucker to. And remember, if you can’t get fresh, get frozen or tinned from the shops instead.

What is a serve?

1 medium piece (e.g. apple)

= =2 small pieces (e.g. apricots)

1 cup chopped or canned fruit

FRUIT

1/2 cup cooked vegies or legumes

=1 whole medium potato

=1 cup salad vegies

VEG

An Australian Government, State and Territory health initiative.

22

b. OCHD’s existing Health Fact-‐Based Brochure

23

c. OCHD’s existing Healthy Highway informative brochure

24

Appendix D Focus Group Moderators Guide

Healthy Highway Campaign Moderator’s Guide

A. INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND Moderator will:

• Introduce yourself and thank participants for agreeing to come. • Thank you for giving us some of your time and coming this afternoon. I am

(name) and I am conducting research for the Oswego County Health Department on the Healthy Highway campaign. I will be moderating our discussion today.

• Parents of elementary aged children and community leaders in Oswego are the target audience for this campaign. The Oswego County Health Department has made it explicit to us that their overall goal for this campaign is to have children continue healthy eating outside of the classroom. Teachers are educating children on the Healthy Highway Program in school but have no control whether those lessons are being implemented at home. Having parents on board the same mission ensures that children will be encouraged to eat healthy inside and outside of the classroom.

• Explain group guidelines and tell how long the focus group will last. • We have the discussion schedule for 15 minutes. During the group we want to

gain an idea of what kind of information parents would find useful., how those as parents would like to receive this information and how often.

• Again, I am here just to facilitate the session today. You won’t hurt my feelings or make me feel good with whatever opinions you might give. We are interested in hearing your point of view even if it is different from what others have expressed.

• I’m going to make every effort to keep the discussion focused and complete within our time frame. If too much time is being spent on one question or topic, I may move the conversation along so we can cover all of the questions.

• Address confidentiality • We will be audiotaping the discussion because we want to capture all of your

comments. We will only be using first names today and there will not be any names attached to the comments on the final report. You may be assured complete confidentiality.

• Participant warm-up • On that note, take these sheets of paper and write down what you ate yesterday.

Let’s go around the table and talk about what is similar.

25

B. DISCUSSION TOPICS EXPLAIN PROCESS:

Our discussion for today is to see how the Healthy Highway Campaign can be brought to parents’ attention and how it can be implemented at home.

• What is your definition of a healthy lifestyle? • What kind of healthy food information would you find helpful? • How would you involve your family when it comes to making your families diet

better? • Can you discuss what you like and dislike about the brochures?

C. CLOSING

• Are there any further comments that you would like to make? • Thank you very much for your input today. We are just about out of time. The

information you provide will help us with our research and help us get a better understanding of what college students think.

Appendix E The Health Belief Model

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Appendix F Follow-Up Interview Guide

I. Presentation Recap

A. What did you know about child obesity before this presentation? B. What did you know about the Healthy Highway before this presentation? C. What new information did you learn from this presentation?

II. Actions

A. Have you spoken to any individuals or organizations about this presentation? B. Have you distributed materials to any individuals or organizations? C. What organizations have you reached out too? D. Do you have any plans to participate in the Healthy Highway program? E. How do you plan to encourage others to participate in the Healthy Highway

program? III. Conclusion

A. What do you think we could add or change about our presentation? B. What other ways can we educate opinion leaders and encourage them to

participate in education with their organizations? C. What other opinion leaders or organizations can you recommend for us to reach

out too?

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Appendix G Evaluation Survey

1. Have you ever seen or heard of the “Healthy Highway” campaign? a. Yes b. No

2. How did you find information on the Healthy Highway campaign?

(Circle all that apply a. Brochure b. Social media posts c. Flyers d. Posters in school e. Handouts sent home f. Emails g. Other parents h. Children i. I have not seen any information on the Healthy Highway

3. Have you seen Healthy Highway recipe cards, activity charts, and

other materials? a. Yes b. No

4. If you have seen these Healthy Highway materials, have you used

them in the household? a. Yes b. No

5. What materials have you used in the household? (Circle all that

apply) a. Recipe cards b. Tips from Facebook posts c. Activity and Reward charts d. Terminology ( i.e. “A banana is a green light food)

6. Would you recommend using Healthy Highway activities to other

parents? a. Yes b. No c. Did not know about Healthy Highway

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30

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C. Social Media Calendar

35

D. Weekly Online Flyer & Link for OCHD Facebook

36

E. News Release

NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jiancheng Huang, OCHD November 24, 2015 Public Health Director

(315) 349 -‐ 3545 SUNY OSWEGO STUDENTS WORKING WITH OSWEGO COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT

OSWEGO, NY – SUNY Oswego students work with the Oswego County Health Department

(OCHD) for their Capstone in Public Relations course, creating outreach and social media

materials to expand the Healthy Highway program within several Oswego County

elementary schools, it was announced by Jiancheng Huang, public health director, OCHD.

“Oswego County has been experiencing some of the highest elementary-‐aged

student obesity rates in New York State in recent years,” said Diane Oldenburg, senior

public health educator, OCHD. “These students have shown great interest in preserving the

health of the kids in our community. We are happy that they can help make a positive

impact on such an important and relevant issue.”

The public relations students have been working with Huang and Oldenburg on

advancing and spreading the program to different elementary schools in the area, since

September. The Healthy Highway program aims to motivate children and families to make

healthy living choices through the use of fun traffic analogies. It is a part of the curriculum

taught during physical education class. The students have met with community leaders and

parents of elementary aged children in Oswego to conduct research and create a plan of

action.

The materials and programs developed with the capstone class are the

culmination of concentrated collaboration throughout the fall 2015 semester, said

Oldenburg.

For more information, go to http://www.healthy-‐highway.com/ or contact

[email protected].

###

37

F. Recipe Cards

A program that is easy for parents to imple-ment, fun for children, and creates an envi-ronment where every family member learns to take responsibility for living a healthy life-style.

The award-winning program’s “Rules of the Road” addresses healthy eating, the impor-tance of exercise, self-es-teem, positive think-ing, the importance of listening to what your body is telling you, and much more.

38



39



40



41

G. Healthy Highway Rewards Chart

42

H. Healthy Highway Bulletin Board

43

I. Informative Presentation

hhc final paper

Documents