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Disseminating Evidence on Abortion Facilities to Health Departments: A Randomized Study of E-mail Strategies.
- Source :
- Health Communication; Jan2023, Vol. 38 Issue 1, p61-70, 10p, 1 Diagram, 2 Charts, 1 Graph
- Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- Given the politicization of abortion, professionals working in U.S. health departments (HDs) may not be receptive to communications about abortion, despite often regulating abortion facilities. This paper reports results of a randomized, prospective, observational study to test the effects of e-mail language when disseminating evidence on abortion to HD professionals. Our sample was 302 HD employees who oversee healthcare facilities inspection/regulation in all 50 U.S. state HDs, clustered by HD and randomized into two study groups. In November–December 2019, we sent biweekly e-mails containing links to a website summarizing evidence on abortion facility regulation. E-mails/headers sent to one group emphasized public health values and did not include the word abortion; e-mails/headers to the other group used the word abortion. Primary outcome measures were e-mail open rates and click-through rates. Among 221 participants to whom e-mails were deliverable, the overall open rate was 36%. Open rate was 25% for PH values and 46% for abortion groups (p <.05). Effects were moderated by state abortion policy environment: in both supportive and restrictive environments, participants in the abortion messaging group were statistically more likely to open e-mails than those in the PH values group. There was no difference between groups in states with middle-ground abortion policy environments. Among participants opening at least one e-mail, 19% clicked through to the website, with no significant difference by group. This study demonstrates that repeated targeted e-mail campaigns can reach HD professionals with research summaries. Concerns that communications to HDs should avoid the word abortion are unsupported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- PROFESSIONAL standards
PROFESSIONAL practice
PROFESSIONAL ethics
HEALTH policy
HEALTH facilities
CONFIDENCE intervals
ABORTION
EVIDENCE-based medicine
PUBLIC health
RANDOMIZED controlled trials
CONCEPTUAL structures
T-test (Statistics)
COMMUNICATION
DECISION making
DESCRIPTIVE statistics
RESEARCH funding
STATISTICAL sampling
DATA analysis software
EMAIL
LONGITUDINAL method
WORLD Wide Web
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 10410236
- Volume :
- 38
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Health Communication
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 160756084
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2021.1932109