UF College of Journalism and Communications

Dental campaign benefits from media outreach

By Stephanie Stinson

Public relations Assistant Prof. Youjin Choi is helping to spread the word: Something deadly could be lurking behind your smile.

Five minutes is all it takes to go through the non-invasive screening for oral cancer at a dentist’s office, Choi said.

In 2003, she partnered with a UF College of Dentistry research team to increase public awareness of the disease among African-Americans through a $1.7 million media campaign, “Oral Cancer: It spreads faster than you think.”

Three years earlier, Choi researched the sensationalism of anti-smoking messages geared at young adults for her doctoral work at the University of Missouri.

“Our College has great resources and potential to contribute to interdisciplinary projects,” Choi said. “Other disciplines are interested in learning how to use media in order to get connected to the public or special audiences.”

The screening consists mainly of a visual inspection. Dentists and/or hygienists examine the roof of the mouth, the area under the tongue and the back of the throat. They also palpate the outer area surrounding the mouth, namely around the jaw.

“Oral cancer is a critical disease in the male population, and African-Americans are more vulnerable to oral cancer than other ethnicities,” Choi said. “Oral cancer is the ninth most common cancer among white males and the fifth most common cancer among African-American males.”

Moreover, the five-year survival rate is only 50 percent.

“We’ve been trying to do follow-ups with people in stages 3 and 4 of the disease, and in three to six months, half of them have died already,” said Jennifer Watson, project coordinator of the campaign.

The team received a $1.7 million grant in 2004 for five years from the National Institutes of Health to try to reduce the ethnic gap. It has been running operations out of Jacksonville, where the disparity in oral cancer occurrences between whites and African-Americans is one of the highest in the state, Choi noted. The group conducted focus groups and surveys and offered free screenings around the city.

“We wanted to make sure that everybody would have access to this exam,” Watson said. “It’s sort of unethical to raise awareness that you need to get this exam and then for people who don’t have access to dental care not to be able to get it.”

The team promoted the campaign through radio announcements and advertisements on billboards and buses, and distributed brochures at dentists’ offices and at the Duval County Health Department.

Choi’s major role in the project included developing the questions, reporting the findings and conducting market research with the media. She played an integral part in organizing the press coverage through the different media channels and in dealing with the advertising firm, Watson said. It was Choi’s responsibility to produce various campaign materials such as pamphlets, brochures and public service announcements for radio and TV.

“It took about two years to study African-Americans’ knowledge of oral cancer and collect their advice on developing the campaign and its materials,” Choi said.

Risk factors for the disease include drinking, smoking, chewing tobacco, prolonged exposure to the sun and a history of human papillomavirus (HPV). Although Choi and her team believe the risk factors explain the gender gap in the disease, they are uncertain on the ethnicity gap, as more white Americans smoke and drink, she said.

“We guess that African-Americans have a lower knowledge of the disease,” Choi said, “and thus are less likely to request screenings from their dentist.”

The team is tabulating the data it has collected since starting the campaign to determine if it has had any notable effects. The results are in from the first survey that the team administered, but they have yet to collect the data from the second round of surveys. The project will wrap up by spring 2009.

Early results show that awareness of the importance of oral cancer screenings has increased from 13 percent to about 40 percent among people who knew nothing about the disease initially, but did at follow ups, Watson said. Furthermore, not only did the research team raise awareness in the general population, but also in its target population of African-Americans, she said. Before the campaign, about 12 percent of African-Americans in Jacksonville knew about oral cancer screenings, and that number has since risen to 46 percent.

“Hopefully, our messages and screening events can encourage [Jacksonville residents] to understand the significance of oral cancer and to talk their significant others into considering getting examined as well,” Choi said. “Moreover, not a lot of dentists realize their role as information providers and that they should be providing health information along with their services.”