2012 NDEP Frankie Award Winners
NDEP is pleased to announce the winners of the 2012 Frankie Awards. The Frankie Awards recognize the innovative and effective use and promotion of NDEP materials and resources as the cornerstone of diabetes prevention and control programs and initiatives. They are named in honor of Frank Vinicor, M.D., former director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Division of Diabetes Translation (DDT) and a founder of the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP). All state Diabetes Prevention and Control Programs, organizations, and public or private partners who used NDEP resources to develop prevention and/or control initiatives or incorporated NDEP materials into existing activities between January 2011 and December 2011 were eligible to apply. The Frank Vinicor Award of Excellence recognizes exemplary use or adaptation of NDEP resources in a comprehensive, multifaceted campaign to address behavior change. It is selected from among the winners in the four categories.
Use of Media
National Kidney Foundation of Michigan
Communities Against Diabetes
There is a high burden of unmet economic, social, and health support needs in the predominantly African American populations of Flint, NW Detroit, and Inkster, MI. The National Kidney Foundation of Michigan (NKFM), with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), aims to reduce morbidity and premature mortality and eliminate health disparities associated with diabetes in these three communities. One of the project’s key objectives is to raise awareness of diabetes and its related complications. By using the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) materials and messages in local community centers, health clinics, and housing complexes, as well as in print, radio, and social media outlets, we hope to infuse the community with information and resources to better manage diabetes.
With the help of multiple partner organizations, we used creative strategies to deliver NDEP materials and messages to meet the unique needs of the communities. For example, NDEP’s managing diabetes posters were adapted to connect with the hard-to-reach community members with a photo of a local resident along with their story and message about managing diabetes. These posters were displayed at community locations, and on Facebook pages. Also, NDEP’s Tasty Recipes cookbook, recipe cards, and posters were distributed at cooking classes, restaurant events, grocery store tours, and farmers markets to provide tools to eating a healthy, diabetes friendly diet. Dozens of NDEP campaigns, messages, and materials were implemented over the course of this project. To maintain consistency, we implemented a targeted campaign using the phrase “Control Your ABCs” to raise awareness across the 3 at-risk communities. The ABCs message was tagged onto all messages, tweets, Facebook posts, and press releases. Multiple community organizations and businesses have embraced the NDEP posters and materials and have committed to making them prominently visible to their patrons and guests.
Over 40 partner organizations regularly distribute printed NDEP materials through their organization - to patients at free clinics, at local grocery stores, fitness organizations, restaurants, and local businesses. Social media has been another very successful way to distribute NDEP messages to community members and organizations. Each coalition has a Facebook page to share information and NDEP messages. Combined, the coalition Facebook pages have nearly 200 fans and over 14,000 view posts in the last year. The NKFM Twitter page has 485 followers, which has nearly quadrupled in the last year. It is estimated that NDEP messages have reached up to 55,000 Twitter users. Several diabetes-related messages were re-tweeted 108 times by other Twitter users, reaching 155,000 people. In addition, over 55 newspaper articles were printed in the last year, reaching an estimated 386,300 readers. As part of the Diabetes ABCs Campaign, a radio commercial as well as public service announcements and digital advertisements were aired in the communities (with a reach of 648,000 adults on air, plus 78,729 monthly streaming and mobile visitors). There were also three television interviews on metro-Detroit outlets. Two interviews that appeared on the local CBS station discussed fighting diabetes in Southeast Michigan, and an interview on another local station talked about fitness and diabetes management. Television interviews aired in the community to raise awareness of the importance of managing diabetes.
For more information about NDEP's Frankie Awards and the 2012 winners, please click here to visit NDEP's website.