“Know More Hepatitis:” CDC's National Education Campaign to Increase Hepatitis C Testing among People Born between 1945 and 1965

Abstract

In 2012, CDC issued recommendations calling for those born between 1945 and 1965, or baby boomers, to get tested for the hepatitis C virus. To help implement this recommendation, CDC developed "Know More Hepatitis," a multimedia national education campaign. Guided by behavioral science theories and formative research, the campaign used multiple strategies to reach baby boomers and health-care providers with messages encouraging baby boomers to get tested for hepatitis C. With a limited campaign budget, the "Know More Hepatitis" campaign relied mostly on donated time and space from broadcast and print outlets. Donated placements totaled approximately $14.7 million, which reflected a more than 12-to-1 return on the campaign investment. This effort was supplemented with a small, paid digital advertising campaign. Combining audience impressions from both paid and donated campaign efforts resulted in more than 1.2 billion audience impressions.

Development of a Comprehensive Dataset of Hepatitis C Patients and Examination of Disease Epidemiology in the United States, 2013–2016

“…While prior evidence suggests that a substantial proportion of chronic HCV patients do not successfully transition through the multistep HCV care continuum [29,47], we observed significant improvements in the proportion of patients being tested for genotype and liver fibrosis staging over the study years. This observation is consistent with increased awareness of HCV, improved screening efforts supported by the CDC, and nationwide efforts to improve the outcomes of the linkage to care process in recent years [29,42,43,48]. Future work will also examine HCV antibody screening rates and outcomes across the testing-to-care continuum for patients.…”

“…Strengths of this study over other available data sources include the most current available data, use of HCV RNA-confirmed cases, geographic and population expansion beyond the NHANES dataset, and the ability to stratify these epidemiological and clinical data by patient characteristics, payer, disease We noted an increase in the total number of untreated or not retreated HCV RNA-positive patients from 2013 through 2016. Substantial efforts supported by the CDC are focused on screening patients born before 1966 [42,43]. However, acute HCV cases in patients 20 through 39 years of age have risen dramatically since 2009 [19].…”

The future of viral hepatitis testing: innovations in testing technologies and approaches

“…Other recommended interventions to promote uptake of hepatitis testing and linkage to care include peer and lay health worker support in community-based settings, clinician reminders to offer testing, and testing as part of integrated services, alongside the use of different media strategies to promote awareness about hepatitis in the general population [ 6 , 15 , 59 , 60 ].…”

High prevalence of unawareness of HCV infection status among both HCV-seronegative and seropositive people living with human immunodeficiency virus in Taiwan

“…The lower prevalence of UoHCV among HCV-seropositive PLWH diagnosed in 2014–2020 compared with the prevalence among those diagnosed before 2008 may be attributable to the results of recent efforts to fight the spread of HCV. These efforts include the increase in publicity on HCV worldwide, newly available DAAs, and implementation of measures to ensure the affordability of oral DAA agents in Taiwan; such measures include national programs for using DAA agents to treat patients with advanced HCV (implemented in 2017–2018) and for providing treatment support to all eligible patients enrolled in Taiwan’s National Health Insurance program (2019–present) [ 42 , 43 ]. This means that compared with before 2008, there is now a higher likelihood of primary physicians testing for HCV and identifying HCV seropositivity in people recently diagnosed as having HIV and informing them of their condition.…”