RESEARCH AND PLANNING (continued)
 Understand Your Audience
Your material will be most effective if it appropriately targets the intended audience—whether it is a narrowly defined group, such as Colombian American teenagers living in East Boston, Massachusetts, or a heterogeneous national audience. You will need to learn key demographic information about your audience and become familiar with the audience’s knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and experiences related to health and safety in general and to traffic safety in particular. If your audience is diverse, you will need to develop messages that resonate with all of the subcultures. If you are targeting a broader audience, seek information from as many stakeholders as possible representing a variety of groups.
Work with your local Latino partners to learn about your target audience in two ways:
- Obtain input from members of your local partner’s organization. These individuals are likely to be professionals and community leaders.
- Ask your local partner to contact people in the community for their input. Conduct focus groups, informal interviews, or surveys of community residents. You can carry these out yourself, draw on students or community volunteers, or use the services of marketing or health education organizations that have used these methods.
It is important to note that once you conduct research to understand a particular audience, that same research can be used to develop additional materials for the same audience. This is especially important if you have budget constraints.
 For resources on conducting focus groups, see appendix B, step 3.
Planning and Recruiting Focus Groups
Because EST staff did not have expertise in conducting focus groups, we hired an organization that would train our bilingual staff in conducting groups and assist us in developing questions and planning the groups and would co-facilitate the sessions.
. . . To prepare for the focus groups, we followed these steps:
- Determined our questions according to the information we wanted to obtain
- Contacted the WEST group to help recruit participants
Provided stipends of $25 for each participant, with an additional $10 for people who needed child care assistance
Reserved three sites that were centrally located, accessible by public transportation, and well known to residents
—EST staff |
Planning and Recruiting Focus Groups
Public relations firms plan and implement focus groups all the time. Logistically, we start by developing criteria for participation (between certain ages, years in the United States, income level, occupational level, etc.). You could go to the YMCA and ask the first 20 people you see, but are they the clientele you’re looking for? We think about where people meeting our criteria are likely to be found. Then we contact those places—such as community-based organizations and churches—to recruit and see if we could post a flyer at their location or put information in their newsletter.
We found that for every one qualified person we get at a focus group, it takes three hours worth of time in calling and recruiting. It takes around thirty hours to get a group of 10, but you need to secure 12 people because some won’t show up. In addition to the time it takes to find and contact relevant organizations, it takes about a week of full-time work for one staff person per focus group.
If you do focus groups at different times, like for pre- and post-testing, you would want different people at each group so they have a fresh perspective. Ideally, you want people who represent your target audience and are not familiar with the issue or material.
—Brandon Alvarez-Montgomery, The Media Network
At the beginning of our projects, we do focus groups in various cities to find out what communities have most in common. You can never address all their differences; you have to find what the communities agree on. We went to our Promesa partners for help setting up 12 focus groups, in places as varied as the Bronx; Brownsville and Del Rio, Texas; and Los Angeles. When we went there, they told us which countries the majority of the audience came from. So we knew we were talking to different groups. We had a set of questions we used with each group. We had our child passenger safety consultant help us develop the questions: What is the situation? Why aren’t kids in safety seats? What would change people’s behaviors? —National Latino Children’s Institute |
Planning and Recruiting Focus Groups
Working closely with community-based partners provides many benefits —access and understanding, insights based on front-line experience, learning from prior efforts, and much more. Engaging community-based partners for research, however, should be done carefully. There have been too many instances where focus group have not produced sound research. The problems include biased respondent recruitment, site selection that inhibits open or frank discussion, influential individuals sitting in on focus groups and dominating the discussion, and moderators leading discussions primarily to validate pre-formed opinions. If the intent is to conduct good research, it is important to have professional guidance and to maintain objectivity.
—Carlos Arce, Ph.D., NuStats
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 Understand Your Audience’s Demographics
It is important to understand background information about your audience, such as urban or rural origin, their countries or origin, socioeconomic status, literacy levels, degree of acculturation, and familiarity with motor vehicle traffic. Such information will help you hone your message. For example, if you are developing a child passenger safety material for families that you know have low incomes, you should provide information on obtaining low-cost or free child safety seats. If you are developing a pedestrian safety material for an audience that you know is urban, you will provide information on traffic signals and crosswalks. If you are developing a material for a community of recent immigrants who are likely unfamiliar with pertinent traffic laws, the material should include information about these laws.
The Importance of Understanding Demographics
Our research on Mexican and Central American immigrants has shown that for written communications (brochures, print ads, usage and installation instructions, etc.), the most severe barriers or challenges are about literacy, education, and cultural familiarity, rather than the specific words used in the materials. If you know that members of your audience come from a rural background and have had little or no schooling, that is far more valuable than knowing their country of origin, as far as predicting understanding of and conforming to good traffic safety behavior. Based on that knowledge, messages can be tailored to provide the necessary context that can aid understanding.
—Carlos Arce, Ph.D., NuStats |
For sources of information on demographics, see appendix B, step 3a.
 Understand How Your Audience Views Health Issues
Although your material will focus on traffic safety, it is useful to examine research about the general health-related knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and experiences of Latinos, all of which will be relevant to the way your audience perceives traffic safety information.
It is inadvisable to make many generalizations about this diverse community; however, researchers and practitioners have reached some conclusions about the health knowledge and behavior of Latinos, which you can use as a starting point for generating your own findings and ideas. (Unless otherwise indicated, these comments are from the EST National Work Group.)
- Knowledge, attitudes, and behavior vary based on age, gender, length of time in the United States, and other factors.
- Other problems that communities are experiencing—poverty, lack of resources, illness, etc.—may lower the priority of traffic safety.
- Some Latinos mistrust both the government and law enforcement officials.
- Latino immigrants are more likely to get their news from television and radio than from newspapers (LCAT and Midwest Latino Health Research 2001).
- Values important to many Latinos include family, respect, community, and love of their country of origin.
- In focus groups, Latinos said that family members (spouse, mother, and children, in that order) have the greatest influence on them. (LCAT and Midwest Latino Health Research 2001).
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For sources of additional information on Latinos and health-related issues see appendix B, step 3b.
 Understand How Your Audience Prefers to Receive Health Information
Knowing how your audience prefers to receive information will help you plan the dissemination of your material. Here are some factors to consider:
Trusted Messengers
Who will your audience trust to deliver a traffic safety message? Find out who would be the most effective messenger for your audience and try to partner with that person or group. For example, would it be more effective to have a member of the clergy, a teacher, a school nurse, or a community health educator deliver your message?
Existing Networks
Think about where your audience lives, works, and socializes, and the services they currently use. For example, if you are targeting parents of Latino children ages four through eight for a child passenger safety campaign, consider the following questions: Do the children attend after-school programs? Does the target audience attend neighborhood health festivals? Are the parents members of community organizations?
Preferred Methods
Find out what methods your audience considers most trustworthy. Would they prefer a brochure, a game, a simple checklist, or a fotonovela accompanied by a workshop? Do they prefer that you go to their homes (e.g., for a “baby safety shower”) to demonstrate the safety product and discuss the problem?
 Understand How Your Audience Views Traffic Safety Issues
Your material will be most effective if it addresses the actual traffic safety-related knowledge, experiences, and beliefs of your target audience. In some cases, newly arrived immigrants may be familiar with motor vehicle traffic in general, but unfamiliar with United States traffic laws and customs; applying behaviors from their country of origin in the U.S. may be frustrating and dangerous. In other cases, immigrants from rural communities may be largely unfamiliar with motor vehicle traffic in general, and thus have little prior knowledge or experience upon which to draw when interacting with traffic as a driver or as a pedestrian in the U.S. Recognizing these differences is often the first step in altering the perceptions and behaviors of your target audience.
You will want to know how your audience answers the following questions:
- What is the scope of the injury problem you are addressing (e.g., pedestrian, bike, motor vehicle, or impaired-driving-related injuries)?
- Why does this type of injury happen? Who is responsible?
- How can this type of injury be prevented? Who can play a role? What can they do? Would certain changes to the environment or laws, or access to safety equipment and information make a difference?
- Why don’t individuals, groups, or governments take these actions?
- What kind of prevention messages, images, and words would be compelling?
The following information is not intended to be complete or to apply to all Latinos, but rather to encourage you to consider factors that may influence your audience with regard to the traffic safety topic you selected. (Unless otherwise indicated, the information below is drawn from the EST National Work Group.)
Latinos, Traffic Laws, and Law Enforcement
- Newly arrived immigrants may be unfamiliar with this country’s laws and sanctions.
- Due to their immigration status, many Latinos cannot apply for a driver’s license or sit for the written exam. Thus, they have not seen or studied the written booklet on driving laws and policies (LCAT and Midwest Latino Health Research 2001).
- Enforcement of traffic safety laws in the United States may differ from enforcement in a Latino’s country of origin.
- “It’s the law” should not be dismissed, as it can be a powerful motivator in any message relating to traffic safety issues. There is a strong, healthy respect for the law and for authorities, even if it is sometimes linked to fear of them. For undocumented immigrants, obeying the law is even more important, as these individuals may believe that being caught for breaking a traffic law could lead to immigration problems. —Carlos Arce, Ph.D., NuStats
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Latinos, Safety Belts, and Child Passenger Safety
- Latinos report several factors that affect their use of safety belts, including public safety campaigns about the importance of the belts, their belief that the belts can save lives based on hearing real-life stories, and their fear of being sent back to their countries of origin due to their immigration status (LCAT and Midwest Latino Health Research 2001).
- Primary safety-belt laws (in which police can stop a driver for not using a safety belt) appear to be even more effective among Latinos than among non-Latinos (Davis et al. 2002).
- Some Latinos believe that a child is safest in his or her mother’s arms, because she can comfort or protect the child in the event of choking or another health problem (I. Rodríguez, pers. comm.).
- A Texas-based project found that Latino parents preferred child passenger safety seats that had been blessed by a priest (M. Stowe, pers. comm.).
- Some Latino men hold the belief that wearing safety belts implies that they are not in control of the car.
- Some people cannot afford child safety seats; when the seats are affordable, people are more likely to use them.
- Strong child passenger safety laws are an effective catalyst for changing behavior. Some parents who would otherwise not secure their children in child safety seats are prompted to do so if it is required by law (Ross et al. 2004).
- Sometimes a pickup truck is the only vehicle used by an entire family and may not have room for child safety seats. Older vehicles often have worn or damaged safety belts (I. Rodríguez, pers. comm.).
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Latinos, Speeding, and Impaired Driving
- Some Latinos hold cultural beliefs about spontaneity. For example, often Latinos don’t plan to see one another—they just stop by to socialize. It’s hard to plan for a designated driver when the socializing, (which can involve drinking) is unplanned (LCAT and Midwest Latino Health Research 2001).
- Latino male focus-group participants report that many Latino men avoid driving under the influence because doing so might affect their freedom, their ability to financially support a family, or their driving privileges
(Lee, Rivera, and Raftery 2001).
- Many Latin American countries do not have speed limits. What U.S. citizens consider ‘aggressive driving’ may be more common in many Latin American countries.
Latinos and Pedestrian Safety
- In many Latin American countries, there are no crosswalks or laws related to pedestrian safety.
- U.S. signage for crosswalks, railroad crossings, Do Not Enter, and the like are different from those in many other countries.
General Issues Related to Traffic Safety
- Owning a car in the United States is an important status symbol for many immigrant groups, including Latinos.
- Latinos, like most people, believe that they will never be involved in a crash, thinking, “I’ve taken chances in driving and haven’t gotten hurt up to now; I’m blessed—this won’t happen to me.”
- Cultural or religious beliefs can be interpreted by Latinos to mean that one is destined either to be safe or not to be safe (I. Rodríguez, pers. comm.).
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For sources of additional information on Latino traffic safety knowledge, attitudes, and behavior, see appendix B, step 3d.
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