Utilizing social media for cancer prevention.

Abstract

e13076 Background: Cancer prevention and cancer screening behaviors are challenging to support. A myriad of variables including improved knowledge, language access, and health care access serve as facilitators for cancer screening behaviors. Utah is a vast state that is remarkably sparsely populated with more than 96% of the state defined as either rural (< 100 persons per square mile) or frontier (< 7 persons per square mile). Huntsman Cancer Institute is the only academic health center in the Mountain West and serves as the only NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center in the region. Methods: Access to the internet and to social media helps to bridge geography and support engagement. Facebook Live and Twitter Chats were used to deliver content. Language, Spanish, access was considered. Social media was also utilized to connect interested populations with in-person cancer prevention education events. Results: We will present our outreach results by intervention. Conclusions: Our work has successfully engaged rural and Latino populations in cancer prevention activities through social media.