Public Affairs Specialists : Public Health Messages, Cultural Considerations

by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

(Page 2 of 3)

Spreading Public Health Messages

Public affairs specialists must continually adapt to the ever-changing world of food and health and must stay current on the many kinds of products regulated by the FDA. Today, these include foods, drugs, cosmetics, radiation-emitting products, medical devices, biologics, and veterinary products.

Before the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the 1970s, the early consumer consultants had to be well-versed in other areas, such as water and air, baby cribs, flammable products, and even toys, says Lois Meyer of Buffalo, N.Y. Meyer was one of the FDA's first full-time consultants hired when, in 1964, the FDA recognized the tremendous impact made by the part-time consultants and began a full-time program.

In the 1960s, the FDA tried a new approach to consumer protection with its toy safety program. It trained and "deputized" consumers, who then went to retail stores to make sure that dangerous toys on the FDA's Banned Toy List had been removed from shelves. The program, which was supervised by the consumer consultants, had mixed results, and was eventually discontinued.

Although today's public affairs specialists don't deputize consumers, they do train and rely on them to help spread the FDA's public health messages. Many of these training programs are supported by grants from the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, the FDA's Office of Women's Health, and other organizations.

Lynne Isaacs in Orlando, Fla., teaches senior citizens to educate other seniors about nutrition, food safety, and health fraud. Armed with their new knowledge, handouts, videos, and a food safety teaching kit (food thermometers, chopping mats, cleaning products, and other kitchen aids), the seniors go out to educate others at senior centers, county fairs, libraries, Meals-on-Wheels programs, and other sites.

Isaacs' elder education program, conducted in partnership with the University of Florida Extension Service, was pilot tested in Brevard County, Fla., where nearly one-third of the population is over 55. "The kitchen food safety teaching kits were ultimately distributed to all 67 county extension offices statewide and used by agents and volunteers in hundreds of training programs, reaching millions of consumers," says Isaacs.

Programs like this have been put into practice by the PASs over time, and are one of their most successful means of getting information to the public, says Meyer.

Cultural Considerations

As consumer audiences broadened over the years, outreach efforts changed to keep pace. Target audiences in the 1950s consisted of older people, schoolteachers, and union workers. During the 1960s, they expanded to include youth, low-income families, and Hispanics. By the end of the decade, 20 full-time and 10 part-time consumer consultants had participated in over 400 FDA-sponsored conferences for these audiences.

In the 1970s, consumer consultants got a new name — "consumer affairs officers" — and continued to broaden their outreach efforts. They were given cultural sensitivity training and, for the first time, targeted other minority groups in their outreach programs.

Today's public affairs specialists continue to focus much of their outreach on minority or under-served populations. PAS Laurel Eu of Los Angeles often works with Asians and Pacific Islanders, including Native Hawaiians and people from Japan, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Samoa, Tonga, and the Marshall Islands.

Community leaders are very concerned about the increasing rates of diabetes, obesity, and cancer in these groups, says Eu. "Many health professionals are not familiar with these individuals and their culture. That is why it is so important to partner with community organizations that work closely with these groups. Teaching people how to read the food label, how to use medicines safely, and becoming aware of diabetes and diabetes management can have a big impact on these communities."

Eu relies on certified translation services, when available, and field tests materials to ensure that these consumers get accurate and culturally appropriate health education materials. "In some cases, it takes many words in the Asian or Pacific Islander language to say one word in English," says Eu. "There may be no native equivalent for certain words like 'cholesterol.'"

Evelyn DeNike, the PAS in Detroit, trains bilingual Arab women to teach other women in the Dearborn, Mich., area, home to the largest Arab community outside of the Middle East. "In their culture, a woman doesn't go to a doctor without her husband or brother," says DeNike. "There is a certain trust factor involved, so it's important to have another Arab woman speaking to them in their native tongue."

Training in food safety is particularly important for this community, says DeNike. "The processed foods here are very different from native Arab foods. They need information about the proper preparation and storage of food."

Hispanics in New York City are benefiting from the work of PAS Dilcia Granville. After discovering a high incidence of emergency room visits for children with foodborne illness in Manhattan, Granville partnered with a local nonprofit organization, the Dominican Women's Development Center, to train childcare providers in food safety. After being trained, the providers then taught others throughout the community.

"They were highly motivated," says Granville, adding that the women showed up faithfully for Friday night training sessions for eight weeks. An unexpected but gratifying result of the program was the involvement of apartment building superintendents. "I gave every woman a thermometer so she could take the temperature of her refrigerator and report back to me," says Granville. "Several refrigerators were not working at all and the food was spoiling quickly." After Granville explained the problem to the superintendents, they fixed or replaced the faulty units.

About the Author

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FDA is A United States government body that oversees medical devices, including contact lenses, intraocular lenses, excimer lasers and eyedrops. In the US, these products must be approved by the FDA before they can be marketed.