Project overview
Cascadia conducted community-based social marketing (CBSM) research and outreach project focused on memory loss risks with Black and African American communities. We conducted audience research and engagement with Black and African American communities throughout Western Washington to shape the development of an educational campaign about memory loss, an increasingly common occurrence in Black and African American populations.
Approach and impact
We began this project by first working with key community members—including a variety of well-known Black and African American church leaders with large congregations, as well as expert advisors from the Center for Multicultural Health—to identify seniors and caregivers from Black and African American communities across the state to participate in our audience research and engagement.
Once we recruited participants, we conducted focus groups, surveys, and interviews (with stipends to compensate participants for their time, in accordance with equity best practices) to build an understanding of what messaging would resonate on the topic of memory loss. We overcame engagement accessibility barriers due to virtual participation during COVID-19, including offering phone-based participation when group members could not access the internet. Cascadia conducted 13 insight interviews and facilitated two, two-hour focus groups, collecting critical information and making recommendations to shape the course of a statewide campaign to bring awareness to this important health topic. This project was repeated in 2022-2023 with a focus on Spanish-speaking communities, utilizing TTI outreach and bilingual facilitation in its focus groups and interviews.
