Community Engaged Translation of Adverse Childhood Experiences Information Into Locally Relevant Public Health Messaging

Objective: Conduct Boot Camp Translation to develop locally relevant messages about Adverse Childhood Experiences.

Setting: The Oxford Hills region of Maine is home to Stephen’s Memorial Hospital, which funds Healthy Oxford Hills, a coalition dedicated to promoting a caring, self-reliant, and healthy community. Residents of Oxford Hills bare a disproportionate burden of poverty, low income, chronic disease and ACEs as compared to other counties in Maine. The Community Engaged Research Council identified this topic as a priority issue for the community and jointly secured funding.

Study Design: BCT brings community members, clinicians and researchers together in a systematic and structured way. Participants share their personal expertise and knowledge of their communities to develop locally relevant health messages. 17 individuals with a broad array of lived experience participated. During 2021, meetings included educational sessions on ACEs, Stigma in Healthcare, Research Ethics, and local partners work in this area. The group met regularly to develop a shared understand of ACEs, how their community is impacted and to craft messages. The study team conducted a program evaluation.

Intervention: The group developed 4 messages; 3 target everyone in the community and one targets parents and caregivers. The messages are as follows (1) Hard things happen, but these things do not define us (2) Make a connection; resilience starts by reaching out (3) Connecting helps us rebuild; one positive relationship can make a difference (4) Love. Support. Connect. Messages were produced on yard signs, Facebook profile picture, storefront windows, business cards, a placemat and were distributed throughout the region.

Measures: Process measures included participant experience and overall impressions of the BCT. Data collection included observations using the Pyramid of Engagement Rubric, participant surveys and interviews. Additional descriptive measures included number of materials created, distribution locations and the use of QR codes mapped to a partner website and social media hashtags to assess engagement.

Results: 100% of respondents found the BCT process valuable and thought the right mix of people were involved. 44% of participants were not able to participate at much as they would have liked due to issues with technology and scheduling. 75% of initial participants completed the project.