A U.S. Cancer Center's Interactive Cancer Education Program for Spanish-Speaking Latinos during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Cancer is a leading cause of mortality in U.S. Latino adults, a group with limited access to screening, higher rates of advanced disease, and prone to online misinformation. Our project created a Facebook Live social media video campaign on general cancer prevention, screening, risk, information, and resources, targeting Spanish-monolingual Latinos during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our project consisted of a hybrid video campaign model released to Facebook social media platform between October and December 2021, where pre-recorded videos or livestream interviews were delivered in Spanish with auto-generated, language-concordant subtitles to increase accessibility for the hearing-impaired. The videos featured fluent and ethnically concordant cancer topic experts. The content of these videos included introductions to the local academic cancer center as a resource, general cancer risk factors, screening, early detection and lifestyle modifications. The livestream interview format consisted of structured questions followed by time allocation for community members to ask questions in real time through Facebook Live comments. At interview conclusion, the recording was promptly uploaded within minutes for future replay. Performance metrics as reported by Facebook media analytics were collected, including total views, people reached, impressions, engagements, and shares. A total of 7 videos (4 pre-recorded, 3 livestream interviews) were released onto Facebook social media platform generating 2 hours, 55 minutes, and 32 seconds of playtime, 161 shares, 1000 engagements, 12,000 views, 19,000 people reached, and 34,000 impressions from October 2021 to January 2022. The video with the most views (4,400), people reached (7,100), and impressions (10,000) was the pre-recorded "The importance of a healthy diet in the prevention of cancer." The video with the least views (355), people reached (747), and impressions (904) was the livestream interview, "Cancer and nutrition." The pre-recorded videos accumulated more views (9,607) than the livestream interviews (2,707). The highest performing livestream interview by views, people reached, impressions, shares, and engagements were, "Cancer in the Latino community." Our project bidirectionally engaged Spanish-monolingual Latino community members and culturally/linguistically concordant cancer experts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Strengths included developing community partnerships and collaborations, providing evidence-based cancer information in a culturally responsive manner to a marginalized group, and presenting an academic cancer center as an accessible resource to its community. Programmatic efforts to improve our project include formalizing evaluation strategies to capture medical engagement via cancer screening and detection rates, delivering focused cancer discussions by disease sites, and further expanding audience base through mixed media formats.