Awareness Messages Research Articles

Promoting precautionary behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: Development and validation of a behavior-change messaging campaign

BackgroundDesigning a health promotion campaign is never an easy task, especially during a pandemic of a highly infectious disease such as COVID-19. In Saudi Arabia, many attempts have been made to raise public awareness about COVID-19 infection and precautionary health measures. However, most of the health information delivered through the national dashboard and the COVID-19 awareness campaigns are generic and do not necessarily make the impact needed to be seen on individuals’ behavior. Health messages need to be applicable and reverent to the individual in the audience. ObjectiveIn light of Fogg-Behavior model, this research aims to build and validate a behavior-change-based messaging campaign to promote precautionary health behavior in individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Intervention messages can then be targeted appropriately during the pandemic. MethodsAn initial library of 32 text-based and video-based messages were developed and validated based on Fogg behavior model for behavior change. Based on this model, three groups of messages were created to reflect the model’s three theoretical concepts of motivation, ability and triggers. Each group of messages is designed to target different segment of the audience. The content of the messages was developed based on resources from the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia. The validity of this content was evaluated by domain experts through the content validity index. ResultsFogg-Behavior Model was used to segment the audience into three different groups based on their perceived ability and motivation. The three groups of messages designed for those groups were found relevant to Fogg theoretical concepts. Thirteen professional health care workers (n = 13) evaluated the content of the message libraries in Arabic and English. Thirty-two messages were found to have acceptable content validity (I-CVI = 0.87). ConclusionsThis research introduced Fogg Behavior Model as a behavior change model to develop targeted messages for three groups of the audience based on their motivation and ability level toward maintaining precautionary behavior during the pandemic. This targeted awareness messaging campaign can be utilized by health authorities to raise individuals’ awareness about the precautionary measures that should be taken, maintain these measures and hence help in reducing the number of positive cases in the city of Jeddah.

A traffic‐centric fuzzy approach for solving the starvation problem of cooperative awareness messages in vehicular ad hoc networks

SummaryCongestion problem in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is one of the main factors that negatively affect the inter‐vehicle communication (IVC) efficiency of such emerging networks. Decentralized congestion control (DCC) is an effective method for overcoming the congestion problem. However, lower priority packets such as cooperative awareness messages (CAMs) may be encountered with the starvation problem in the DCC approach. This paper proposes FDCC: a traffic‐centric Fuzzy DCC approach for improving CAMs delivery ratio, especially in congested traffic flows. FDDC architecture consists of four fuzzy inference systems (FISs). The inter‐vehicle distance (IVD) and the speed variation are the spatiotemporal fuzzy inputs, which are customized for both single direction and multi‐direction scenarios. Based on the FIS outputs, the FDCC control system, unlike the DCC, provides a way for processing starved CAMs by ignoring unnecessary even‐driven messages. The obtained simulation results through OMNET++ in both single and multi‐direction scenarios show the efficiency of FDCC in terms of the end‐to‐end delay, network throughput, and packet delivery ratio for event‐driven messages as well as essential CAMs.

The Correlation between Excess Weight and Duration of COVID-19 Symptoms in a Tertiary Hospital in Amman, Jordan

Overweight and obesity have several negative pathophysiological consequences on the human body during COVID-19 infection. These pathophysiological consequences have a synergistic effect on disease prognosis and outcome. The association between excess weight and COVID-19 outcome has not been investigated before in Jordan. The objective of this study is to evaluate the correlation between excess body weight and the duration and severity of symptoms in patients affected by the novel corona virus in a tertiary hospital in Amman, Jordan. This is a single-center retrospective cross-sectional study of adult patients with confirmed positive COVID-19 who were admitted to a tertiary academic hospital between April and August 2020. Data were collected by telephone interviews and by the review of medical records. One hundred and seventy patients participated in the current study. Around two-thirds of the participants were female patients. Mean BMI for study participants was 27.6 ± 5.4. BMI was statistically significantly correlated with COVID-19 symptoms duration (p-value = 0.003). The mean duration of COVID-19 symptoms for obese patients was 16.0 ±7.3 days compared to a mean duration of 11.9 ±6.4 days for overweight patients and a mean duration of 12.0 ±6.1 days for patients with normal BMI. Multivariate analysis showed that higher BMI was significantly associated with increased symptom duration after controlling other variables. There is a need to increase public health efforts in fighting overweight and obesity. The Jordanian authorities are advised to develop focused awareness messages for overweight and obese individuals to have strict social distancing and other prevention measures against COVID-19. People with increased BMI are a vulnerable group for this respiratory infection and they deserve advanced and tailored efforts to protect them from its adverse outcomes. © 2021, Jordan Journal of Biological Sciences. All Rights Reserved.

Experiences of Disclosure and Reactions of Close Ones from the Perspective of Child Sexual Abuse Survivors: A Qualitative Analysis of Gender Specificities

ABSTRACT The disclosure of child sexual abuse (CSA) is a complex process that remains partially understood, despite its crucial role in survivors’ recovery. Gender specific experiences of disclosure have been little investigated while this information is crucial to better tailor interventions for survivors. This qualitative study aims to 1) explore survivors’ experiences in disclosing to close ones, and 2) contrast experiences of male and female survivors. Fifty-one CSA survivors (25 women and 26 men) aged 18 years or older were recruited via community services for survivors. Two main categories emerged from thematic content analysis: 1) experiences of disclosure hindering CSA recovery or 2) ones fostering CSA recovery. Men felt ignored when their close ones were focused on their own emotions of indifference, helplessness and guilt toward CSA. Men felt guilty when confronted with reactions of blame for their own inaction or disempowered when pressured to remain silent or to forgive. Women felt ignored when their close ones showed anger toward their perpetrator. Women felt guilty when they were held accountable for CSA events or disempowered when pressured to take legal actions. Women, but not men, reported feeling considered through caring and heart-to-heart discussions. Recommendations for awareness messages and practitioners are discussed.

Knowledge and awareness-based survey of COVID-19 within the eye care profession in Nepal: Misinformation is hiding the truth.

Nepal was under a severe lockdown for several months in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There were concerns regarding misinformation circulating on social media. This study aimed to analyse the knowledge and awareness of COVID-19 amongst eye care professionals in Nepal during the first wave of the pandemic. We invited 600 participants from 12 ophthalmic centres across Nepal to complete a qualitative, anonymous online survey. Altogether, 25 questions (both open and closed-ended) were used. An overall performance score was calculated from the average of the 12 "Knowledge" questions for all the participants. Of the 600 eye care professionals invited, 310 (51%) participated in the survey. The symptoms of COVID-19 were known to 94%, whilst only 49% of the participants were aware how the disease was transmitted, with 54% aware that anyone can be infected with SARS-CoV-2. Almost 98% of participants recognized the World Health Organization's (WHO) awareness message, but surprisingly, 41% of participants felt that consumption of hot drinks helps to destroy the virus, in contradiction to WHO information. Importantly, 95% of the participants were aware of personal protective equipment (PPE) and what the acronym stands for. Social distancing was felt to be key to limiting the disease spread; whilst 41% disagreed that PPE should be mandatory for eye care practitioners. The mean overall "Knowledge" performance score was 69.65% (SD ± 22.81). There is still considerable scope to improve the knowledge of COVID-19 amongst ophthalmic professionals in Nepal. Opinion is also split on measures to prevent transmission, with misinformation potentially fuelling confusion. It is recommended to follow WHO and national guidelines, whilst seeking published scientific evidence behind any unofficial statements, to accurately inform one's clinical practice.

Exploring participants’ experiences of mental health and stigma in American colleges

Objective: Mental illness is a growing public concern, particularly for persons in higher education. This research aims to distinguish mental health and stigma experiences between three academic communities: undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members. Methods: The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with nineteen individuals who self-identified as a member of one or more of these groups. Findings and discussion: Participants reported experiencing a variety of mental health conditions (e.g., depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress), and described having diverse cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to internally and externally derived stigma. The findings of this study also provide insights into the ways that academic communities observe and interpret on-campus communication about mental health, and participants offered impressions about ways to improve intervention and awareness messaging. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Could Nintendo’s Animal Crossing be a tool for conservation messaging?

Abstract The current extinction crisis demands worldwide commitment to conservation across all sectors of society. By transcending the traditional disciplinary boundaries, conservationists can reach new audiences to communicate pro‐conservation knowledge, education and awareness messages. There are approximately 2.7 billion video‐gamers worldwide, with millions more joining as a result of global lockdowns. In March 2020, Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released by Nintendo, fast becoming the second‐best selling video game ever in Japan, and selling over 26.4 million units worldwide. Unlike many popular video games, its unique premise involves players creating an island, growing vegetation, catching wildlife and donating fossils and species to a museum. The game has been praised for its positivity, escapism and measurable benefits to mental well‐being. Here, we articulate how different features of the game, including the islands, their biodiversity and inhabitants, encourage players to exhibit pro‐conservation behaviours and attitudes (e.g. recycling litter, or planting a diversity of flowers), as well as improving players’ knowledge about the diversity of relatively little known taxa (marine and freshwater fishes and invertebrates). We also highlight where pitfalls exist (e.g. encouraging the collection of threatened species). We principally frame these discussions in the context of Japan's cultural relationship with the natural world, including its history of insect‐collecting and its management of green spaces. We conclude by outlining some recommendations about potential improvements to future releases, or for similar games, that could further promote conservation messaging. This perspective sheds light on the avenues through which Animal Crossing: New Horizons encourages pro‐conservation knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of its international audience, with potential for these experiences to translate into real‐world conservation actions. During a critical time in humanity's history, video gaming could therefore provide a huge opportunity for communicating conservation messages to billions of people worldwide. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

An evaluation of the Be Your Own Baby public awareness campaign.

Assess the impact of the Be Your Own Baby (BYOB) public awareness campaign including population-level exposure, the effectiveness of ad platforms, and the effect of the campaign on family planning clinic attendance, the campaign's primary goal. The study relied on administrative data on traffic and engagement from the campaign's website, population survey data measuring campaign exposure, and clinic attendance volumes from state-by-year restricted-use versions of the Office of Population Affairs' Family Planning Annual Reports (2006-2018). Bivariate analyses were used to assess website traffic and engagement and population-level exposure across key subgroups. We then used the synthetic control method to examine the impact of the BYOB campaign on per capita Title X clinic attendance among the target demographic, women 18-29 years of age. Not applicable. We relied on secondary sources. Primary media platforms used by the campaign included social media, digital display, streaming audio, YouTube, and search. Website traffic was driven primarily by digital display ads, but engagement was highest for search. Our results suggest nearly 12% of Delaware women 18-29 years of age were exposed to the campaign. However, exposure was measured at the end of the campaign and was likely much larger during its peak. Our results indicated that the campaign was associated with between 13 and 23 additional Title X clinic visits per 1000 women compared with 110 users per 1000 at baseline in 2014. Our findings suggest the BYOB campaign was successful at increasing clinic attendance among the target demographic. These results have important implications for other programs seeking to use public awareness messaging to increase participation in the health care system and are especially important for Title X administrators who have faced declining patient volumes for over 10 years.

The Appropriateness and Usefulness of COVID-19 Short Message Services Directed at the Public in Nigeria

The Study Carried Out An Assessment Of The Perceptions Of Health Professionals In Nigeria On The Awareness Messaging On COVID-19 Directed At The Public Using The SMS (Short Message Service) Technology. The Researcher Focused On Health Professionals In The Metropolitan Areas Of Nigeria As The Respondents. A Structured Questionnaire Titled “Health Professionals’ Perception On Awareness Of Messaging On COVID-19” Was Used To Collect Data From The Respondents. The Mode Of Data Collection Was A Questionnaire Survey Administered Online. The Findings Suggest That Health Professionals Who Participated In The Survey Have A Very Positive Perception Of The Usefulness And Appropriateness, Coverage, And Impact Of The COVID-19 Broadcast Messages From The Nigerian Centre For Disease Control (NCDC); Their Responses Show That The Short Messages Were Sent To Nigerians From Different Backgrounds And Locations To Inform The Populace About The Outbreak Of COVID-19, Prevention, Knowledge About Early Symptoms, How To Reduce The Spread Of COVID-19 In Case Of Infection And What To Do In Case Of Emergency. Additionally, The Research Outcomes Show That SMS Broadcast Was The Leading Channel Of Information Dissemination And Reception For COVID-19 Response As Against The Traditional Channel Of Information Dissemination On Radio, TV, And Others. These Findings Have Highlighted The Importance And Value Of Digital Health Services Such As SMS Technology In Responding To Health Emergencies.

Development of a Low Cost Mobile Phone-Based Intervention to Support Infants’ Vaccination among Nursing Mothers

In Nigeria, nursing mothers in rural communities lack public amenities such as safe water, adequate primary health care, good electricity supply, GSM network coverage and good road network. These often predispose them to be noncompliant to infants’ immunization uptakes and have high rates of morbidity in Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPD) among infants. Mobile phones can be leveraged upon to provide a viable medium to support immunization uptakes and adherence using few mobile phone-based interventions which are available for low-income nursing mothers. Hence the study assessed development of a low cost mobile phone-based intervention to support infants’ vaccination among nursing mothers. The study developed a low cost mobile phone-based intervention to support infants’ vaccination among nursing mothers in an effort to alleviate the challenges of infant’s vaccination among nursing mothers, a low cost mobile phone-based application was designed and tested among nursing mothers. In the development of the app, incremental software development was adhered to using Java programming language in an Android Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The software was pretested using pre and post experimental data collection. The app is a reminder system, preloaded with immunization awareness messages. It is simple to install and use and does not cost nursing mothers airtime or data. It only requires scheduling at-birth immunization’s date. The app can schedule and display all other immunization dates automatically; relate specific health benefits of each vaccine as a reminder messages both in English and Yoruba languages automatically as scheduled. The experiences of the nursing mothers with this software were gathered for six months through pre-test and post-test pre-experimental design. The app was found effective in reminding the nursing mothers about immunizations appointments, enlightening them about the immunization health benefits to their infants. The intervention has possibility of improving immunization compliances and attendants at clinic appointments. Since it is low cost software, it is therefore recommended for the nursing mothers. Keywords: Vaccine Preventable Diseases, immunization, Integrated Development Environment (IDE), intervention, mobile phone, nursing mother. Journal Reference Format: Onamade, A.A., Oyerinde, O.O., Oduwole, A.O. Lala, O.G. & Longe, O.B. (2021): Development of a Low Cost Mobile Phone-Based Intervention to Support Infants’ Vaccination among Nursing Mothers. Journal of Behavioural Informatics, Digital Humanities and Development Research. Vol. 7.No. 2, Pp 1-8 Available online at https://www.behaviouralinformaticsjournal.info dx.doi.org/ 10.22624/AIMS/BHI/V7N1P10

Breast Cancer Information Behaviours and Needs among Singapore Women: A Qualitative Study.

Background:There is growing evidence on cancer communication and its impact on cancer-related health outcomes; however, little is known about how women gain access to and use breast cancer information in the multi-ethnic Asian context. This paper aimed to explore the breast cancer information acquisition behaviours and needs among Singapore women who attended a community-based health organisation for mammography screening. Methods, design and setting:Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 37 racially diverse, aged 50 and above women, who have received mammography screening within the past two years. The interviews were conducted at either the Singapore Cancer Society Clinic or participant’s home. Results:Although cancer information scanning was more prevalent than information seeking (91.9% vs. 62.2%), those who purposively seek information exhibited a higher knowledge level of breast cancer. The most commonly cited sources for information scanning were friends, television and family, and for information seeking were the Internet, pamphlets from a healthcare organisation/ public authority, and healthcare providers. Singapore women were well-informed about the benefits of mammogram; however, specific knowledge, such as modifiable risk factors, reasons for different screening options and the trade-off between harm and benefit, was still lacking which led to confusion about screening.Conclusion:Breast cancer health educational materials should provide clear and balanced information to give women a more accurate or realistic expectation about mammography screening. Study findings provide important implications for breast cancer education and programs to move beyond simply raising awareness and craft specific informative messages addressing the needs of the target group.

Awareness Assessment of Connected Vehicles in Highway Driving: A Perceived Safety Approach

This article showcases a perceived safety analysis framework to assess the awareness of connected vehicles (CVs) of surrounding safety-critical vehicles. We study two classes of messages that a CV can transmit: 1) messages containing information about the transmitter only [e.g., standardized basic safety messages (BSMs) and cooperative awareness messages (CAMs)], and 2) messages that aggregate information about the transmitter and surrounding objects detected by their onboard sensors [e.g., collective perception messages (CPMs)]. We show how the proposed framework allows one to identify safety-critical vehicles and the effect of the type of transmitted messages on the awareness of these critical vehicles. To evaluate the performance, we use experimental data with mixed traffic of unconnected vehicles and CVs at different penetration ratios. Results show that CPMs are significantly more effective at providing awareness of safety-critical vehicles at low-to-mid-connectivity penetrations. At high-connectivity penetrations, messages with only information about the transmitter are sufficient to provide full awareness without burdening the wireless channel.

An exploration of migrant women\u2019s perceptions of public health messages to reduce stillbirth in the UK: a qualitative study

BackgroundStillbirth is a global public health priority. Within the United Kingdom, perinatal mortality disproportionately impacts Black, Asian and minority ethnic women, and in particular migrant women. Although the explanation for this remains unclear, it is thought to be multidimensional. Improving perinatal mortality is reliant upon raising awareness of stillbirth and its associated risk factors, as well as improving maternity services. The aim of this study was to explore migrant women’s awareness of health messages to reduce stillbirth risk, and how key public health messages can be made more accessible.MethodTwo semi-structured focus groups and 13 one to one interviews were completed with a purposive sample of 30 migrant women from 18 countries and across 4 NHS Trusts.ResultsParticipants provided an account of their general awareness of stillbirth and recollection of the advice they had been given to reduce the risk of stillbirth both before and during pregnancy. They also suggested approaches to how key messages might be more effectively communicated to migrant women.ConclusionsOur study highlights the complexity of discussing stillbirth during pregnancy. The women in this study were found to receive a wide range of advice from family and friends as well as health professionals about how to keep their baby safe in pregnancy, they recommended the development of a range of resources to provide clear and consistent messages. Health professionals, in particular midwives who have developed a trusting relationship with the women will be key to ensuring that public health messages relating to stillbirth reduction are accessible to culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Finding Needles in Heterogeneous Haystacks

Due to intense competition and lack of real estate on the front page of large e-commerce platforms, sellers are sometimes motivated to garner non-genuine signals (clicks, add-to-carts, purchases) on their products, to make them appear more appealing to customers. This hurts customers' trust on the platform, and also hurts genuine sellers who sell their items without looking to game the system. While it is important to find the sellers and the buyers who are colluding to garner these non-genuine signals, doing so is highly nontrivial. Firstly, the set of bad actors in the system is a very small fraction of all the buyers/sellers on the platform. Secondly, bad actors ``hide" with the good ones, making them hard to detect. In this paper, we develop CONGCN, a context aware heterogeneous graph convolutional network to detect bad actors on a large heterogeneous graph. While our method is motivated by abuse detection in e-commerce, the method is applicable to other areas such as computational biology and finance, where large heterogeneous graphs are pervasive, and the amount of labeled data is very limited. We train CONGCN via novel sampling methods, and context aware message passing in a semi-supervised fashion to predict dishonest buyers and sellers in e-commerce. Extensive experiments show that our method is effective, beating several baselines; generalizable to an inductive setting and highly scalable

91 An audit of COVID-19 Awareness and Public Health Message Effectiveness in the Hospital Setting Over the Course of the Pandemic

IntroductionAn audit of healthcare workers investigated the effectiveness of Public Health England’s (PHE) information campaign across COVID’s timeline and assess knowledge between job roles.MethodData was collected across 3 cycles in 3 hospitals. A questionnaire assessed four domains: symptoms; spread; risk factors and the means to reduce transmission. PHE materials were shown before cycle 2 and respondents then subjected to the general campaign.Results253 responses were collected. Symptom recognition was 84%, increasing to 88% post-intervention, longer-term recognition remained high at 81% - including the new symptom of anosmia.Identification of COVID’s means of transmission increased from 76% to 95% post intervention, risk factor recognition increased from 85% to 93% post-intervention. This fell to 74% later in the pandemic when recognised risk factors increased. Recognition of the new risk factors BAME status and BMI was 73% and 79% respectively in the final cycle.Doctors had the highest number of pre-intervention correct answers for 3 domains and nurses gave the most incorrect answers for 3 domains pre-intervention.ConclusionsWe have shown the PHE message is being transmitted effectively. We have also shown an increase in hospital workers recognition of aspects of COVIDs characteristics that have since been verified in the literature.

Effect of health education about personal hygiene on student’s health in primary school

The students’ knowledge of personal hygiene can implement by teachers in schools or parents at home. The study conduct to assess the effect of health education bout personal hygiene on student’s health through the interventional program. A quasi-experimental study pre-post-test design use in this study. Previous of the using intervention program, E-histolytica notice higher in the control group 20 (69%), giardia lamblia 9 (29 %) in the intervention, while after the intervention program, giardia lamblia 23 (22.1%) in the interventional group rate is decreasing, there was a statistically significant after participant receiving health massages and practice hand washing technique (p-value =.039). The score of personal hygiene and the student’s awareness of health messages increased (p = < 0.01). This study confirmed that the effect of health education was highly significant among participants after the intervention program. A study concluded that raising awareness of students about personal hygiene to decrease health problems associated with poor personal hygiene can be provided through health education massages in collaboration with a ministry of health and education.

Heterogeneous Mobile Networking for Lightweight UAV Assisted Emergency Communication

Due to the frequent natural disasters in recent two years, UAV assisted disaster networks have attracted attention due to the flexible information storage and favorable computation capacity in technical rescue. The previous studies concentrate on dynamically optimizing the service coverage to improve the system performance. However, the continually changing of energy cost, time cost, and the social connections between users are not jointly considered in previous studies. In this paper, we propose a social relationship-based timeliness aware message splitting scheme for the energy-friendly UAV assisted delay tolerant networks. Firstly, we put forward our social network based splitting optimization problem and use social network closeness and message's decaying with time to quantify the messages' value. Next, a social optimization copy splitting algorithm (SOCS) is designed to guarantee the lower expected delay and higher message delivery ratio through UAV assisted interesting areas (IAs). Finally, the extensive simulations show the optimality of the proposed SOCS algorithm using the enhanced social relationship based forwarding scheme.

Exploring the use of workplaces to recruit \u201chard-to-reach\u201d male drinkers to a survey on alcohol use and awareness of health messages

BackgroundLower socioeconomic status (SES) groups, particularly lower SES males, are at greater risk of alcohol-related harm than higher SES groups, despite drinking at the same level or less. However, they are rarely recruited for research through typical recruitment strategies. Consequently, limited evidence exists on patterns of alcohol use and effectiveness of public health messages for these groups. Using workplaces to recruit male drinkers from lower SES backgrounds may provide a feasible and accessible approach to research participation and enable improved understanding of alcohol use, drinking motives and acceptance of alcohol-related public health messages in this underrepresented and high-risk group. We investigated workplace-based strategies to recruit male drinkers from lower SES backgrounds. We also investigated their experiences and motivations for alcohol use, and acceptance of alcohol-related public health messages.MethodsA feasibility element investigated the effectiveness of workplace-based strategies to recruit male drinkers from lower SES backgrounds in the south west of England. A pilot element investigated this population’s experiences and motivations for alcohol use, and acceptance of alcohol-related public health messages, through a mixed-methods survey.ResultsFeasibility results indicated that workplace-based recruitment strategies, including recruiting participants in person at their workplace and providing a financial incentive, effectively led to the recruitment of 84 male drinkers (70% recruitment rate), predominately from lower SES backgrounds, to a survey. Pilot results indicated that more than half of participants were at increasing risk of alcohol-related harm, and approximately one fifth engaged in weekly heavy episodic drinking. Participation in campaigns aimed at reducing alcohol use, and knowledge of government alcohol consumption guidelines, were low. Participants reported negative beliefs about alcohol including health effects, dependency and excess use, and financial and occupational effects. Positive beliefs about alcohol included relaxation, socialising, and enjoyment.ConclusionsWorkplace-based recruitment, using in-person recruitment and a financial incentive, may be a feasible strategy to recruit male drinkers from lower SES backgrounds. Pilot results may direct larger scale research aiming to understand alcohol use in this population and inform targeted public health messages. Workplace-based recruitment may represent a promising avenue for future research aiming to tackle inequalities in participation in alcohol research.

Utilization of family planning methods among currently married women in Pakistan: Insight from Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017–2018

In Pakistan, like other developing countries, utilization of family planning methods is a serious public health concern among married women. Researchers in the study focused on utilization of family planning methods among married women and their exposure to media messages. The researchers used retrospective analysis of secondary data of 3334 married women. Our research findings reveal that married women have a very limited access to media service messages promoting utilization of family planning methods. It is discussed that women with exposure to media messages about the utilization of family planning significantly utilized birth control behavior than women who had not heard and seen any media message. The authors concluded that married women in the country particularly in rural areas have a very limited access to media messages promoting family planning which causes non-utilization of family planning methods. It is recommended that different programs and awareness messages on media should be started to promote family planning and married women's access to media programs should be ensured.

Pattern discovery, validation, and online experiments: a methodology for discovering television shows for public health announcements.

Public Health Announcements (PHAs) on television are a means of raising awareness about risk behaviors and chronic conditions. PHAs' scarce airtime puts stress on their target audience reach. We seek to help health campaigns select television shows for their PHAs about smoking, binge drinking, drug overdose, obesity, diabetes, STDs, and other conditions using available statistics. Using Nielsen's TV viewership database for the entire US panel, we presented a novel show discovery methodology for PHAs that combined (i) pattern discovery from high-dimensional data (ii) nonparametric tests for validation, and (iii) online experiments on Facebook. The nonparametric tests verified the robustness of the discovered associations between the popularity of certain shows and health conditions. Findings from fifty (independent) online experiments (where our awareness messages were seen by nearly 1.5 million American adults) empirically demonstrated the value of the methodology. For 2016, the methodology identified several shows whose popularities were genuinely associated with certain health conditions, opening up the possibility of health agencies embracing both big data and large-scale experimentation to address an old problem in a new way. Policy makers can repeatedly apply the methodology as new data streams in, with perhaps different feature sets, pattern discovery techniques, and online experiments running over longer periods. The comparatively lower initial investment in the methodology can pay off by identifying several shows for a potentially national television campaign. As simply a by-product, the initial investment also results in awareness messages that might reach millions of individuals.