NYC Health: Promoting NYC's Health

Since 2015, I have worked with my colleagues at Whitman Insight Strategies as a strategic partner for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, using qualitative and quantitative research to help the organization explore the attitudes and opinions of New Yorkers on a variety of health-related issues, and testing and optimizing messaging/advertising to effect change.

WINS has worked with the Department to design project-specific focus groups as well as mini-groups and triads, and surveys, using custom research methods to explore, ideate, and test communications among a variety of audiences (ranging from doctors, to the general population, to low-incidence at-risk audience) in both English and Spanish. Focus Groups have involved the testing of communications stimuli, attitudes prevalent (or not prevalent) among target audiences, awareness of issues in the news, sources of advice, and media usage and consumption.

Most recently our team worked with the DOHMH to conduct qualitative research among New York City adults and medical providers to examine attitudes and feelings towards immunizations, and assess ways to overcome the barriers to getting vaccines among adults. And in 2015, we worked with the DOHMH to examine attitudes towards sexual health and to understand perceptions of PrEP. The research provided seminal insights for how to effectively overcome barriers and motivate at-risk populations to embrace STD/STI prevention techniques.