Description of Study

Principal Investigators: Dr. Karen Whitehill King
Co-Investigators: Dr. Vicki Freimuth

There are a variety of preconception health messages that need to be communicated to women of
child- bearing age. Research is needed to determine whether bundling or combining these
messages can be done while maintaining communication effectiveness.

 

Research Goals and Design:

The main objectives of the study are to:

• Determine whether bundled preconception health messages are likely to be equally, more, or as effective as single messages among women ages 18-34.
• Examine how many messages can be bundled together while maintaining message
  effectiveness.
• Gain insight into the types of messages that can be bundled together.
• Focus groups of women from different income groups were conducted to see how women
  grouped different health messages.
• Print brochures were developed that utilized different bundling approaches (all 15 messages to 3 – 4 message bundles to single messages) and their readability assessed.
• Six types of message bundles and controls are being compared in an experiment with women of child bearing age and different educational levels.

What we hope to learn:

Women were able to group preconception health messages into categories and explain why they
grouped them as they did. The experiment will determine whether bundled messages are as
effective as single messages, how many messages can be bundled together without losing
effectiveness, and more about what type of messages can be bundled together.