New Approaches on Cervical Cancer Prevention Campaign For the Young Women

Background and context: Approximate 4000 new cases of cervical cancer, including carcinoma in situ, are found in Taiwan each year. More than 20% of that are in precancerous status, the age ranges from 20 to 34, equivalent to 1 out of 5 cases is young women. To deliver the message to young women to advocate cervical cancer prevention through vaccination + Papanicolaou test screening, new promotional approaches have been executed with innovative technology. Aim: 1. To elevate the understanding of the risk of HPV infection to young women between age 20 to 34 with new technology approaches. 2. Raise the awareness of cervical cancer prevention among young women. 3. Drive young women to take active role on cervical cancer prevention, particularly on HPV vaccination. 4. Encourage young women to visit gynecology clinic (OB/GYN) willingly to have regular Papanicolaou test screening. Strategy/Tactics: 1. Use humorous video + social media to attract the attention of young women, by male celebrities to remind female about HPV vaccination, and encourage them to prevent the disease with peers. 2. Invite key opinion leader (KOL) and social media influencers to resolve the passiveness, by celebrities + KOL to call on people to take action. 3. Use innovative technology/social media channels to spread and extend the meaning of this campaign. 4. Use location based service (LBS) provided by mobile service companies + GPS service to encourage young women to visit nearby OB/GYN. Program/Policy process: 1. Video of HPV and cervical cancer reminder from male KOL celebrity; in addition, HPV awareness ambassadors encourage young women to participate “vaccination + Pap smear screening”. 2. Resolve passive action by celebrities + KOL calling people to take part on the cervical cancer prevention, by sharing cervical cancer prevention messages on Facebook to influence fans to carry out the event spontaneously. 3. To encourage young women to visit nearby OB/GYN by LBS mobile text message service, and search for the nearby OB/GYN with GPS system on the map of the campaign Web site. Outcomes: The significant views from social media events: promotional video, Facebook activity, and mental quiz game have totally reached 4,889,276 views, from August 11 to November 1, 2017, the completion of promotion. Moreover, the page view of the campaign Web site had reached nearly 125,000 views and accessed 45,000 new target audience. LBS messages were read by 52,464 women, 8114 of them visited OB/GYN, which means 15.5% of young women were successfully encouraged to visit OB/GYN. What was learned: By using new technology and social media approaches to promote cervical cancer prevention to young women, we found that KOLs played significant role on influencing our target audience. By utilizing a variety of channels to communicate with the young women in new technology approaches will be the mainstream of promotion.