The Measures Registry User Guides: Tailoring Messaging and Outreach to a Diverse Target Audience

Background:  Communicating about research is a challenge for every public health issue, but especially for complex topics such as childhood obesity. Along with many types of researchers, research resources are also needed by practitioners, clinicians, university faculty, and students. The National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR), a partnership among CDC, NIH, RWJF, and USDA, has conducted significant outreach around selecting measures for childhood obesity research and evaluation efforts—work that is a prime example of strategically selecting channels and tailoring messaging and content for diverse target audiences.

Program background:  Measurement is at the core of all research. A top priority for NCCOR is encouraging consistent use of high-quality, comparable measures across childhood obesity research efforts. To provide guidance on choosing appropriate measures, NCCOR created the Measures Registry User Guides, available as interactive web versions and downloadable PDFs (http://www.nccor.org/nccor-tools/mruserguides/). FHI 360 has broadly promoted the User Guides through partner channels; NCCOR blog and e-newsletter; Connect & Explore webinar series; and social media, including Twitter and LinkedIn. Tailored messaging and outreach were also implemented for each of these audiences:

University-based Researchers and Academic Faculty: FHI 360 targeted professional associations and schools of public health, nutrition, and exercise science to reach university-based researchers and academic faculty. Additionally, the authors created teaching slides and recorded webinars for faculty to use in their courses.

Practitioners and Clinicians: FHI 360 reached out to obesity-focused organizations, professional associations, SNAP-Ed practitioners, and dietitians. The authors developed case studies to help users better understand the context and process for selecting measures.

Graduate Students: FHI 360 reached out to student affairs and student groups at schools of public health, nutrition, and exercise science and created case studies, slide decks, and recorded webinars for students to learn from.  

Evaluation Methods and Results:  FHI 360 uses Google analytics to track web page views and Twitter analytics to measure social media reach. In the first two months of outreach, the User Guides received 4,467 page views (1,619 unique views), making them the most popular page on the NCCOR website. On Twitter, @NCCOR earned 31.5K impressions, double the engagement rate of the previous two-month period. More than 50 accounts have tweeted or retweeted messages about the User Guides. Additionally, several NIH and HHS institutes and offices have written blog posts about the User Guides and shared links on their websites. 

Conclusions:  It is evident that the Measures Registry User Guides have filled a distinct need in the childhood obesity research field. Next steps for outreach include developing audience-specific fact sheets about the guides, tutorials at professional conferences, and learning modules to increase use of the guides by each identified audience. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  The Measures Registry User Guides exemplify tailoring messaging and outreach of specific guidance on selecting appropriate research measures to reach a wide range of professional audiences. Translating and disseminating this guidance, with the aim of encouraging the use of common measures, is critical for driving forward progress in the childhood obesity research field.