Not Just for Kids: Developing a Communication Campaign to Raise Awareness of Asthma In the Elderly

Background: Contrary to the perception that asthma is a childhood disease, asthma can develop in older adults; and the risk of dying from asthma increases with age. In the past, asthma-related health promotion has been primarily aimed at children and their caregivers. We conducted a series of formative research activities, including a survey of 4,131 people aged 55 and over. Analysis of the formative research using the Health Belief Model (HBM) identified that older adults have high perceptions of severity but low perceived susceptibility (i.e., asthma is a serious disease for ‘others’, particularly children); see a number of barriers to, but few benefits from, diagnosis and treatment; and do not perceive cues to action to be relevant to them.

Program background: A campaign brief was developed emphasizing that the overall aim of the campaign is to increase community awareness of asthma among those aged 55 years and over, and to communicate that asthma can have serious consequences for older adults. They were also told that the campaign materials should be designed to communicate that: getting breathless is not a normal part of ageing; asthma can have a serious impact on health and lifestyle; symptoms can be controlled; and provide advice on how to seek help if experiencing respiratory symptoms.  Four focus groups were conducted to test the messages developed; with a total of 34 participants, average age of 63 years.

Evaluation Methods and Results: The participants highlighted positive and negative aspects of all three campaigns and provided clear directions for development of final campaign materials. They responded particularly well to images of people interacting with their grandchildren, and people engaged in everyday activities in natural settings; they identified the need to draw a careful balance between images of people who were ‘clearly over 55’ and people who were ‘old people’ (which is not how the target audience sees themselves). Participants liked the use of taglines such as “Get your life back” and “Confront asthma today” because of their simplicity and the sense of empowerment conveyed by the phrases.

Conclusions: The results of this research were utilized to refine the campaign messages and develop a series of executions for each of the two audience segments. The campaign commenced across the region in February 2012. A pre-intervention survey was distributed and 817 completed surveys (response rate = 75.1%) returned; the survey will be repeated at the completion of the campaign to assess changes in knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. NOTE that the final evaluation results will be available by the time of the conference.

Implications for research and/or practice: With the aging of the population, and the concurrent increase in the prevalence of chronic disease, there is an increasing need for health promotion/social marketing programs to target older adults. It was clear from our formative research, and from the substantial media interest following the launch of our campaign, that older adults perceive symptoms such as breathlessness and wheezing to be “a normal part of ageing” and do not identify themselves as the target of health education campaigns designed to increase awareness, and improve management, of chronic diseases.