Neuroendocrine Tumor Awareness Program in Taiwan

Abstract

Background and context: Neuroendocrine tumor (NET) is difficult to detect. It's often presented with symptoms common to other diseases. To raise awareness and improve the understanding of NET, the International Neuroendocrine Cancer Alliance (INCA) announced 10th November as the World NET Cancer Day. HOPE FOUNDATION for CANCER CARE has joined the advocacy events since 2011. Aim: To raise awareness and to improve the understanding of NET. Strategy/Tactics: To raise the awareness of the 10 symptoms of NET. To provide correct information about NET. To improve the understanding of NET. Program/Policy process: We held a series of campaigns in November 2017, including: theme decorations in 11 hospitals, 3 parades and shows at public places, a new animation with online marketing and outdoor advertising. By combining online and offline events, we have reached as many people as possible to increase the awareness and improve the knowledge of NET. We built the first as well as the only NET Mandarin Web site ( www.net.org.tw ) Outcomes: We cooperated with 11 hospitals in Taiwan to display educational posters and wall stickers. The information of NET cancers not only reached the public but also oncologists. This event had 3 newspaper reports and 16 online news reports. We conducted 3 educational parades and shows with zebra theme in three main cities in Taiwan. The parade in capital city Taipei gained total 86 reports including 71 online news media, 8 television channels and 7 newspapers. We cooperated with a celebrity artist to create a zebra mascot, which represents international symbol for NET. In addition, we created awareness lightbox advertising and animated video with the mascot to attract public attention and raise awareness of NET. This animated video was published on YouTube platform, and had 504,209 impressions and 208,427 views by 31st December 2017. Moreover, it was broadcasted on taxis in Taiwan as well. It was broadcasted 1,163,248 times during the promotion period. We also implemented an online advocacy plan through Facebook. This plan was designed with 4 posts, which contained a comic strip, an online memory game, a profile picture frame and an animated video. This plan totally had 332,625 impressions and reached 154,089 people on the Internet. What was learned: According to our experience with cancer patients, we realize that utilizing mascot characters to deliver educational information is more easily perceived by the public. This year we designed a new mascot of NET which was applied to animated video and outdoor advertising. Also, we conducted 3 educational parades with zebra theme and traditional Taiwanese features, which opened up a new dimension in advocacy for cancer awareness. Overall, these events received good response from the public and oncologists. The NET Mandarin Web site also showed a significant result with an increase of 98% of monthly page views and 69.7% of new visitors views.