Leveraging Mobile Technology and Trusted Community Partners to Address Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Vaccinations: Evaluation of Multichannel Digital Communication (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Innovative and strategic interventions are needed to address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among communities which have been the most heavily impacted by the pandemic. Digital interventions are a critical component of strategies to promote healthy behaviors among target populations. Furthermore, given that the communities most vulnerable to COVID-19 experience mistrust toward health care systems, health promotion programs must consider the trustworthiness of the messenger in reaching target populations. This campaign utilized digital messaging strategies and trusted community partners to inform vulnerable populations about COVID-19 prevention, vaccinations, and other social services. OBJECTIVE This paper assesses the reach and impact of the COVID-19 messaging campaign which aimed to provide vital health information about COVID-19 prevention and vaccination to Black and Latino members of the Metro-Atlanta community by using multichannel communications through trusted community partners. METHODS Emory’s Collaborative Community Outreach and Health Disparities Group (ECCOHD) established a “connected community of care” model to disseminate health messages, resources, and linkages through trusted networks. Utilizing multichannel communications through SMS, social media, and flyers, the messaging campaign began to reach our target population in July 2020 and continued to do so until July 2021. RESULTS From the beginning of the campaign in July 2020 to its end in July 2021, the Metro-Atlanta COVID-19 messaging campaign sent out 2.4 million messages to 142 000 unique individuals. These messages received nearly 97, 000 click throughs and reached females 18-39y more than any other demographic. “High-risk” zip codes in DeKalb County were the highest reach zip codes. Regarding social media outreach, the campaign’s posts received more than 1.3 million impressions through ESSENCE Media’s Instagram and Facebook accounts, which have a reach of nearly 100, 000 followers. Furthermore, in the five zip codes that the messaging campaign reached the most, an average decrease in vaccine hesitancy of 9.92% was recorded from the beginning to the end of the campaign. CONCLUSIONS Leveraging a network of messaging partners who have long-standing relationships with underserved communities was key in establishing trust with these community members and motivating them to action. Additionally, utilizing data from the COVID Community Needs Index (CCNI) as well as the COVID Community Vulnerability Index (CCVI) proved to be a vital tool for identifying zip codes with greater need and informing our campaign strategy. Additionally, mobile technology allowed for our customized messaging to reach hundreds of thousands of individuals and make millions of impressions on social media among communities with high vaccine hesitancy, such as Back and Latinx Americans.

Podcasts for the Delivery of Medical Education and Remote Learning (Preprint)

UNSTRUCTURED Podcasts are increasingly being recognized as an effective platform for medical education. Compared with textbooks, face-to-face meetings, and other more traditional forms of medical education, podcasts are generally more engaging and less expensive to develop. Podcasts are at the cutting edge of digital education and can be an important element of a pharmaceutical company’s multichannel communications plan to improve health care professional (HCP) engagement and education in specific therapy areas. However, developing a successful podcast can have significant challenges. In this viewpoint paper, we provide our perspectives on medical podcasts as a medium for educating HCPs in the digital age. We describe our experience in developing a HIV-focused podcast for Australian HCPs, creating a series that has now expanded to other therapy areas in several countries. Practical considerations for developing podcasts and suggestions for how to overcome unique issues associated with industry-sponsored podcasts are outlined. Overall, we believe that the process of developing a podcast can be a challenging but rewarding experience, and medical education via podcasting should be more routinely considered by pharmaceutical companies.

ANALYSIS OF THE EXPERIENCE OF TECHNICAL OPERATION OF LINE-CABLE STRUCTURES OF TRANSPORT MULTICHANNEL COMMUNICATION

Анализируется опыт технической эксплуатации линейно-кабельных сооружений (ЛКС) транспортной многоканальной коммуникации (ТМК). Показано, что действующие сегодня в России нормативно-технические акты применять к технологии ЛКС ТМК нельзя; требуется разработать новый документ - «Руководство по проведению планово-профилактических и аварийно-восстановительных работ на линейно-кабельных сооружениях транспортной многоканальной коммуникации». The experience of technical operation of line-cable structures of transport multichannel communication is analyzed. It is shown that in Russia it is impossible to apply the current guidance documents to the technology linear-cable structures of transport-multichannel communication. It is necessary to develop a new guidance document “Guidelines for implementation of scheduled preventive and emergency recovery works at line-cable structures of transport multichannel communications”.

Simultaneous Multichannel Signal Transfers via Chaos in a Recurrent Neural Network

We propose neural network model that demonstrates the phenomenon of signal transfer between separated neuron groups via other chaotic neurons that show no apparent correlations with the input signal. The model is a recurrent neural network in which it is supposed that synchronous behavior between small groups of input and output neurons has been learned as fragments of high-dimensional memory patterns, and depletion of neural connections results in chaotic wandering dynamics. Computer experiments show that when a strong oscillatory signal is applied to an input group in the chaotic regime, the signal is successfully transferred to the corresponding output group, although no correlation is observed between the input signal and the intermediary neurons. Signal transfer is also observed when multiple signals are applied simultaneously to separate input groups belonging to different memory attractors. In this sense simultaneous multichannel communications are realized, and the chaotic neural dynamics acts as a signal transfer medium in which the signal appears to be hidden.