Roswell Park Uses High-Tech Approach to Reach Out to Young People: FOCUS: ROSWELL PARK
By Henry L. Davis, The Buffalo News, N.Y.
Dec. 18–The newest experiment at Roswell Park Cancer Institute is a high-tech attempt to cure the nerdy image of science and medicine.
At yroswellpark.com, young people can write blogs, watch videos and interact with veteran cancer researchers and doctors who act as virtual mentors.
The Web site, a partnership with teenfriendly radio station Kiss 98.5, dovetails with an institute presence on YouTube and social-networking sites MySpace and Facebook.
Aimed at Generation Y, Roswell Park’s new hip, graphics-heavy initiative is an attempt to do for cancer what Nike did for sneakers — achieve the highly desired but elusive quality of hipness.
At the very least, the cancer center wants to connect with young people in untraditional ways, hoping they will consider careers in oncology, create a social network linked to the institute to help them deal with cancer in their lives and donate their time and money to the cause.
The effort places Roswell Park among a small but growing number of health care institutions that are leading the charge into social networking and other new Internet technologies built around the ideas of audience participation and users generating the content.
“We want to be seen as a cool place that is curing cancer. To do that, we have to talk to young people in their language and in the ways they communicate,” said Laurel DiBrog, vice president of marketing, planning and public affairs.
The Y Roswell Web site features a number of videos starring young people from the area who discuss their roles in curing cancer.
The video clips star:
–Brian Abraham, a 21-year-old college student who helped update and maintain a vast collection of genetic data during an internship at Roswell Park. He plans to pursue a career combining his interests in medicine and computing.
–Liz Ostrom, 21, a University at Buffalo senior who was motivated to become a nurse because of the excellent care she received when she had surgery while in high school. The nursing major works as a nurse’s aide at Roswell Park.
–Christina Szalinski, 21, a Geneseo State College biology major who helps conduct research at Roswell Park on the gene that causes prostate cancer. The college senior plans to pursue a doctoral degree in this field.
–And the entire Hamburg High School girls soccer team, which decided this year to wear pink T-shirts during practices and to raise money for breast cancer research. The girls persuaded teachers, classmates and family members to donate money for every goal, win and shutout during the season.
“When we win, we don’t just win for ourselves. We win for breast cancer research as well,” said Bruce Mitchell, the team’s coach.
Generation Y is the term that has been popularized to describe the estimated 70 million Americans born between 1981 and 1995. They grew up with the Internet, mobile phones, wireless devices and electronic games.
Their comfort with new media is getting noticed in health care.
An increasing number of organizations produce Web sites that supplement text with blogs, videos, photo slide shows and podcasts that visitors can listen to.
“Today, you have to engage people and provide worthwhile information instead of straight advertising,” said Lee Aase, manager of media relations and new media at the Mayo Clinic, which operates one of the most sophisticated health-related Web sites on the Internet.
Using virtual interaction
Like Roswell Park, a few other institutions and groups are starting to tap into Facebook’s ability to connect people and build networks of friends. Their numbers are expected to grow.
Aase said he also sees a trend toward patients developing social networking sites, as happened recently with a heart transplant recipient at the Mayo Clinic.
“This is a great way for people to tell their stories, provide mutual support and encourage donations,” he said.
Still others are building virtual worlds.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, shares health information in an online “cyber community” called Second Life. Visitors can create avatars and explore the site with the CDC’s virtual staff member, Hygeia Philo, named for the Greek goddess of health.
The American Cancer Society, after using Second Life for a successful fundraising campaign, is now working on attracting volunteers through an “office” in the 3-D virtual world.
Millions of people around the world frequent these sites, and the effort by Roswell Park and other hospitals is about conversing with them directly.
“The health care industry will have to develop social media if it is interested in helping people find accurate information online,” said Kathy Divis, a founding partner at Internet consultants Greystone in Atlanta.
Answers and advice
Roswell Park’s Web site is designed around a handful of key themes.
It includes a mentorship program, which allows users to chat with institute physicians and scientists about careers in cancer treatment and research. In a section of the site about coping with cancer, users can talk with the center’s expert on psychosocial issues, post survivor stories and obtain information on helping friends or family who are diagnosed with cancer.
Students can find help for homework related to cancer, and teachers can find advice on how to design a classroom curriculum. Parents can learn how to talk to children about cancer and to cope with cancer in the family.
There are plans for online clubs devoted to particular issues, as well as video clips from a reality-based show from a scientist’s laboratory.
Branding the field as ‘cool’
“At the start of all this, we asked ourselves how can we motivate people to go into the life sciences? How can we improve our ability to recruit? How can we build the Roswell Park brand? How can we turn around a belief by some that science is boring?” said Di- Brog.
She and her colleagues looked at what has worked in other businesses, including Nike and Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola, for instance, offered an example of the power of advertising when, a few years ago, it dramatically altered the marketing for Sprite, a lemon- lime soft drink that had fallen out of favor with customers. The company revitalized the tired brand by targeting young males in commercials that featured hip-hop, sports celebrities, a lot of attitude and the catchy tagline of “Obey your thirst.”
Suddenly, Sprite was not only popular again, but it was the in drink.
“The question for us is how do we make the fields of cancer cool and link it all to a place like Roswell Park?” Di- Brog said.
Abraham followed the plans for yroswellpark.com while he interned at the cancer center last summer. The senior at Rochester Institute of Technology maintains a blog on the site while completing his degrees in medical informatics and music.
“The site is just getting off the ground, but it’s a great resource. You can communicate with researchers. People with cancer are talking to each other,” he said.
Abraham says he sees Roswell Park’s strategy to use new media to remake the image of oncology paying off in the future
“For people my age, this is the time when we decide what we’re going to do the rest of our lives,” he said. “To play a role in this huge human problem is important. It’s an opportunity every morning to wake up and say, ‘I’m curing cancer.’ “
News Staff Reporter Stephen T. Watson contributed to this report.
hdavis@buffnews.com
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