Dime La VerDAD: Verify, Debunk, and Disseminate

Summary

Dime la Verdad (Tell me the truth) will evaluate the use of storytelling by community health workers as a communication strategy to disseminate reliable health information on social media and encourage informed decision-making in favor of recommended immunizations in communities with high morbidity and mortality due to respiratory virus infections.

Dime La Verdad is an innovative social media capacity-building program based on theoretical frameworks related to health communication that empowers community health workers to disseminate reliable information about respiratory virus protection strategies through the use of personal narratives on social media. The proposed work will use a rigorous stepped wedge design to 1) deliver a scalable program of science communicators using an adapted curriculum grounded in principles of health communication, 2) evaluate how diffusion of health messaging is perceived on social media, and 3) discern how use of personal narratives to enhance science communication can encourage informed decision-making to promote evidence-based immunization practices and improve health outcomes.

Conditions

• Influenza
• COVID-19
• Communication Research
• Health Behavior
• Respiratory Viral Infection

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Science Communication Curriculum Cohort 1

Community health workers will receive a tailored curriculum where they can learn to diffuse reliable information and create infographics and media as well as incorporate their personal narratives into social media posts for their communities. Community health workers will share their final infographic and final post / social media strategy.

BEHAVIORAL

Science communication curriculum Cohort 2

Community health workers will receive a tailored curriculum where they can learn to diffuse reliable information and create infographics and media as well as incorporate their personal narratives into social media posts for their communities. Community health workers will share their final infographic and final post / social media strategy.

BEHAVIORAL

Science communication curriculum Cohort 3

Community health workers will receive a tailored curriculum where they can learn to diffuse reliable information and create infographics and media as well as incorporate their personal narratives into social media posts for their communities. Community health workers will share their final infographic and final post / social media strategy.

BEHAVIORAL

Science communication curriculum Cohort 4

Community health workers will receive a tailored curriculum where they can learn to diffuse reliable information and create infographics and media as well as incorporate their personal narratives into social media posts for their communities. Community health workers will share their final infographic and final post / social media strategy.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Iowa

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Michigan

  collaborator OTHER

• Rush University Medical Center

  collaborator OTHER

• Bedford Research Corporation, Inc.

  collaborator OTHER

• Tanoma Consulting

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)

  collaborator NIH

• University of Chicago

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Marina DelRios, MD · University of Chicago - Section of Emergency Medicine

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

SEQUENTIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

99 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-07-02

Primary Completion

2028-06-30

Completion

2029-04-01

Countries

• United States

Study Locations