Public Health Messaging in Veron, Dominican Republic

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to create public health programming that focused on prevention techniques of the most common health issues that present among Veron’s child population. In May 2017, Fundación Grupo Puntacana opened a new children’s clinic in the informal urban area of Veron. Through the Oscar de la Renta Pediatric Clinic in Veron, we created public health messages to play in the waiting room. We collaborated with the children’s clinic doctors, had informal conversations with community members and leaders, and observed the operations of the children’s clinic to gain a better understanding of children’s health issues. Through visiting various areas of Veron, we filmed children and parents for our prevention video to demonstrate preventative techniques in the Veron context. Our goal was to create videos that encompass cultural sensitivities of the region as well as convey a clear health education message to parents and guardians. After the videos were created, we presented the videos to the doctors, various community members, and Fundación Grupo Puntacana representatives. The videos received positive feedback by all three parties. When creating public health messaging for a targeted audience in a community, cultural integration is important to consider in creating effective content. In addition, it is important to have conversations with various parties to obtain a full understand of social, economic, and other factors that affect the health of the community’s children.