As Beijing experiences rapid economic development, an undesirable side effect - air pollution- has appeared and has rapidly become a major health and environmental challenge. Therefore, campaigns are needed to educate people about how to protect themselves effectively. Clean Air Asia (CAA) is a leading international non-governmental organization that leads the mission for better air quality and healthier, more livable cities in Asia. CAA is planning to launch an public health education campaign to protect the health of senior citizens against the effects of air pollution in Beijing. As a group of students from Stanford University and Tsinghua University, we are advising CAA on ways to effectively communicate with senior citizens to empower them to take steps to protect their health.
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Key findings from the literature review
Shorter lifetimes
Daily exposure to PM pollution indoors and outdoors may result in adverse effects on cardiovascular function and blood mediators that modulate vascular system in seniors. The gap in life expectancy between areas with good air quality and moderately heavily polluted areas was 3.78 years for women of the age of 65 and 0.93 years for men.
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AdviCe from Family
Elderly people tend to focus on spending time with family and old friends, and avoid people and experiences that cause negative emotionality and negative effects.
As for their habits, many elderly adults may prefer maintaining their current lifestyle instead of changing any of their behaviors. This is supported by the openness aspect of personality—or openness to new experiences— which slightly declines as people age. |
Regulation and Education
Both regulations and education are important. Regulation reduces emissions of harmful chemical substances while education can help elderly people realize importance of protecting their health and change their behavior. As for education, a campaign at community space or salon will be effective because elderly people gather these places regularly to talk daily events.
Posters and booklets can easily come into their view. |
Summary of fieldwork at Stanford
We conducted surveys (20 people) and open-interviews (3 people) at Asian super markets in Mountain View. In the surveys and open-interviews, we ask about how people gather information related to health and communicate about health. The interviewees are Japanese and Chinese elderly people who live in the United States . The main findings from our study were:
- 75% of people talk about their health at least one time in a week.
- 75% of people try to learn ways to improve their health, but 50% do not know their daily actions have impacts on their health.
- 66% of our sample who were smokers cited family advice as a major motivator in choosing to quit smoking. People stopped smoking because of family's advice.
- All interviewees talk about their health with their spouses.
- Recently, many elderly people get health related information through the Internet.
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Creating Prototypes
Based on our findings, we created four kinds of prototypes of posters to test which methods of communication were most effective when communicating with elderly people from Asian descent. These four prototypes utilized the following strategies:
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Prototype testing
Through prototype testing, we asked for feedback on our four designs and observed people’s reactions to our posters. We found that:
- Elderly people found that the poster (Prototype 1), which uses a photo that shows the seriousness of air pollution, was clear and they told us that this poster made them realize the importance of air pollution.
- Elderly people preferred the prototypes which offered clear and easily implementable strategies to protect against air pollution. Providing the pictures of effective and non-effective masks was particularly well received.
- Many of the elderly people we interviewed were confused by the statistics, and they did not know how to read the pie chart. We found that pictures were more effective that statistics in conveying information to our target population.
- The cartoon was not very clear or effective. Currently, the Chinese government creates many public health cartoons which do not capture the interest nor clearly convey information. We decided that final prototype should not rely on colorful yet vague drawings.
- The prototypes with fewer words (Prototypes 1 and 2) received more positive feedback. In their campaign materials, the number of words should be limited to ensure that only the most important material is included.
Summary of fieldwork at Beijing
We conducted surveys in communities, parks, kindergartens around Tsinghua University. We talked with 60 seniors, ranged from age 55 to 85, with an average age of 68. The main findings from our study were:
- 30% seniors mentioned that they do not check air pollution levels at all.
- Only 2 of interviewees wear masks. The elderly don’t like masks because wearing a mask is uncomfortable and they think maybe useless.
- 33 % of the interviewees don’t go outside when the air is particularly bad. 67 % of the interviewee go outside.
Creating Prototypes
Based on the above results, we created a poster and an informative booklet and launched a campaign in a residential community. The details of our lecture are as following:
1. Activities/games requiring interactions and immediate feedback are helpful
2. Handing examples of materials are helpful for understanding, it also helps a lot to show the elderly how to wear masks in person
3. Game prizes are very effective in attracting more audience and enhance their participation.
4. Interactions are helpful for the elderly to retain the information learned.
5. Hand out reading materials after the lecture/games so they won’t distract the attention of the audience
1. Activities/games requiring interactions and immediate feedback are helpful
2. Handing examples of materials are helpful for understanding, it also helps a lot to show the elderly how to wear masks in person
3. Game prizes are very effective in attracting more audience and enhance their participation.
4. Interactions are helpful for the elderly to retain the information learned.
5. Hand out reading materials after the lecture/games so they won’t distract the attention of the audience
Prototype testing
We tested our prototypes in a community called Zhenwu Jiayuan in the West City District in Beijing. We observed respondents’ behaviors and gathered feedback from audience by interviewing and distributing questioner. The followings are main feedback from elderly people.
- Many interviewees said they knew more about air pollution after our campaign and the tips given in our booklet are quite useful.
- It's crucial to give recommendation of air cleaners in a more convincing format so the elderly won’t mistake it for advertisements.
- Having interactive communications both at the site of campaign and by written way are helpful to get people more engaged. Creating a self testing quiz at the end of the booklet can help.
- It is good to have a series of lasting campaigns and activities in a community to raise more awareness.
- Community center is an effective way to reach the elderly.
Campaign - pictures of the final Posters and the video
We created posters and a lecture which educate seniors about the affect of air pollution on their health and how to protect themselves. These are our latest poster iterations and a video of our lecture:
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Conclusion
Our team is formed with both Stanford and Tsinghua students, and our academic backgrounds are in engineering and the social sciences. Although we had some communication difficulties due to different time-zones and poor internet connection, we learned project management skills and methodologies of designing effective products through empathetic and empirical research methods. One of the most interesting things we learned is the importance of prototype testing. Through our prototype testing process, we realized our misunderstandings about how to most effectively communicate with the elderly. With these insights and the research from our literature reviews, we redesigned our prototypes to better represent the needs of our target population.
In this project, we exchanged a lot of ideas through Wechat. We think that our differences in culture and backgrounds ultimately helped us to make our final products better. We believe that this project was a great opportunities to gain experiences of working in an international group. We hope that our findings and designs will help Clean Air Asia create an effective campaign that allows Beijing senior citizens to enjoy healthier and happier lives.
In this project, we exchanged a lot of ideas through Wechat. We think that our differences in culture and backgrounds ultimately helped us to make our final products better. We believe that this project was a great opportunities to gain experiences of working in an international group. We hope that our findings and designs will help Clean Air Asia create an effective campaign that allows Beijing senior citizens to enjoy healthier and happier lives.
FInal Report
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Team
STANFORD : Hokuto Asano, Phil James Salazar, Sneha Saroja Ayyagari, Yang Yue, Yichen Gao
TSINGHUA : Jiabao Jing, Leqi Sun, Qianli Ma, Tong Zhao, Wen Gao, Wenjie Zheng
TSINGHUA : Jiabao Jing, Leqi Sun, Qianli Ma, Tong Zhao, Wen Gao, Wenjie Zheng