Educational activities at a taxi company to raise awareness of COPD among those at risk and encourage them to seek medical attention.
※You can read Part 2 from here
COPD is a lifestyle-related lung disease that is mainly caused by a long-term smoking habit. It is a chronic, progressive disease that, as it progresses, can affect daily life, causing shortness of breath with even the slightest exertion1, and so early diagnosis and treatment are essential. However, many people with COPD do not seek medical care and are undiagnosed. While the estimated number of patients with COPD is around 5.3 million2, the total number of COPD patients receiving treatment is reported to be approximately 362,0003.
As part of the efforts to raise awareness of the disease and the importance of early medical attention, JTB and AstraZeneca conducted a COPD disease awareness project for taxi drivers.
We interviewed Kiyoyuki Shinke of the Alliance Marketing Team, West Japan MICE Division, JTB, and Tomoko Okoba and Maiko Ishiguchi of AstraZeneca about the project. In Part 1, we look at how their collaboration began and the details of the pilot project.
PROJECT CASE
- Overview
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- A disease awareness project for taxi drivers at Nihon Kotsu
- Selected drivers with potential COPD using a pre-check list, and then held a disease awareness seminar for them
- Examined changes in intention to seek medical care and behavioral changes through pre- and post-surveys
- Started the pilot project with about 600 drivers at the Akabane Office and then rolled it out across the company (about 5,300 drivers in the Nihon Kotsu Group)
- Backgrou
nd/Issue -
- COPD is under-recognized and many potential patients do not seek medical care and remain undiagnosed, which has been a problem for many years.
- It is difficult to reach people who are at risk of COPD but are not aware of the risk, using public lectures, TV commercials, and newspaper advertorials alone.
- Results
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- Analysis of pre- and post-survey results showed that 35.0% of respondents were willing to seek medical care, 7.9% went to the doctor (60.4% of whom were diagnosed with COPD), 48.0% became more health conscious, and 43.4% quit or reduced smoking4.
Extracted those at risk via pre-survey
Tracked changes in awareness and behavior through a two-stage post-survey
―― Firstly, can you give us some background on the project?
Okoba: There has long been a problem with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) in that the disease is under-recognized, and many people at risk of developing COPD are unaware of their risk, and therefore do not seek medical attention or receive a diagnosis. Many pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, have been working continuously to raise awareness of COPD, and have held public lectures for the general public and TV commercials, but unfortunately awareness remains low.
I have been a marketer for this disease for several years, and have always been troubled by the fact that it is difficult to deliver information to those who are at risk. We have also heard from doctors that patients at risk of COPD are not coming to the hospital. We have been looking for ways to encourage people at risk of COPD to know about COPD and visit the doctor, so when JTB proposed an awareness campaign targeting taxi drivers, we were very keen to try it out.
―― Can you tell us why JTB focused on COPD?
Shinke: It started when we saw that AstraZeneca was looking for ideas in i2.JP's "Challenge Application" for "Early Intervention for COPD". At the time, we were strengthening alliance marketing in order to provide value to partner companies in areas other than our core business, and we were considering healthcare projects. When we discussed COPD with AstraZeneca, we identified the challenge of "directly approaching potential COPD patients," and came up with the idea of JTB connecting AstraZeneca with our partner transportation operators.
Okoba: Pharmaceutical companies interact mainly with physicians, so although we can reach patients through physicians, it is difficult to reach people who do not come to hospitals. As many people with COPD do not go to hospital, the idea of educating people working in companies was a good solution to the challenge.
Shinke: As it is said that many taxi drivers are smokers, we proposed educational activities in the taxi industry, where it is easier for us to communicate. Nihon Kotsu, which carried out this project, is actively promoting company-wide health measures, such as introducing the role of Chief Wellness Officer (CWO), as part of its Wellness Management Declaration. Since we had never done this before, we thought it would be difficult unless the company was very health conscious, so we approached Nihon Kotsu.
―― Please give us an overview of the project and how you approached it creatively.
Ishiguchi: We held a seminar as a pilot project in August 2022 at the Nihon Kotsu Akabane Office. The seminar consisted of a 30-minute lecture by a pulmonologist, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. The lecture covered topics such as what COPD is, the importance of seeing a doctor if you are at risk, and what treatments are available.
The two key points of the seminar were to get people at risk to see the COPD problem as "their own business" and to make them aware of the need to actually seek medical attention. I think it was a challenge to design a survey to track changes in awareness and behavior.
Shinke: In order to approach those at risk, we included the COPD-PS (COPD Population Screener) in the pre-survey to identify those at risk of COPD who should be invited to the seminar.
As for the post-survey, the question was what the goal should be. Is the goal to make people aware of the disease? Are we aiming for a change in awareness or even a change in behavior? How do we track awareness and behavior changes? We had many discussions to develop the survey.
Ishiguchi: Rather than just getting people to know about the disease, we decided to set our goals as changing people's awareness and behavior, and we divided the post-survey into two parts: one immediately after the seminar, and one about a month later. After the seminar, we asked about the participants' understanding of the seminar and their intention to visit a doctor, and about a month later, about whether they had visited a doctor and the reasons for not doing so. We also included questions about smoking, which is closely related to COPD.
―― Is there anything else that you have done?
Ishiguchi: In order to increase the seminar attendance rate, we discussed various factors with Shinke-san and Minoru Ouchi-san from the Nihon Kotsu Akabane Office at the time. For example, the date and time of the seminar was decided after discussing with Ouchi-san to determine which days and times would be easier for their taxi drivers to participate since their work schedules are irregular.
Ouchi-san was very proactive, putting up posters, repeatedly calling the target audience to participate, and asking them to answer the survey. I think this helped to increase the participation rate. Of the 551 people who responded to the pre-survey, 120 were eligible for the seminar, and 96 of them attended, so the participation rate exceeded 80%.
Okoba: Unlike public lectures for the general public, the company recommended that they attend the seminar, so I expected that something like governance would come into play. But I also thought that it was not good enough for the company to just say that they were promoting it. We had a hypothesis that governance would work more strongly if the person in charge individually called for participation, and the participation rate would increase, so I think the results supported that.
Shinke: As I mentioned earlier, management is highly aware of health management, but there is often a gap in awareness between management and front-line workers. I think Ouchi-san was motivated and played a very significant role.
About 60% of smokers quit or reduced smoking
Becoming more health conscious, and the program was highly rated as a health measure
―― How was the seminar received?
Ishiguchi: In the post-survey, 95.8% of the participants answered "Understood well" or "Understood a little" about the seminar. I think they listened very attentively4.
Shinke: They asked a lot of questions, didn’t they?
Ishiguchi: Many questions were about smoking. They asked questions such as, "It's been decades since I quit smoking. Am I going to have COPD symptoms?"; "Will my family members also get COPD from secondhand smoke?"; and "Is there a difference between conventional cigarettes and e-cigarettes?" Some participants commented, "I wish I had taken a seminar like this one when I was younger," and "I am going to encourage young people to take a seminar like this one."
―― After the pilot, it was rolled out across the company in September 2022.
Shinke: Susumu Naka-san, the head of the Akabane Office, was an executive officer, and thanks to his efforts, the CWO was to take the lead in the company-wide rollout.
Okoba: In the pilot project, the post-survey conducted one month after the seminar showed that only 2.5% of 59.0% of smokers had either quit or reduced smoking. We also looked at people's interest in health, and of those who said they were "neutral" or "not interested" in the pre-survey, 54.5% said they were now interested. Since Nihon Kotsu is implementing this project as part of its health measures, we believe that the increased health awareness and behavioral change, such as smoking cessation and reduction ,were highly appreciated4.
―― Are there any benefits of collaboration?
Okoba: The pharmaceutical industry has various unique rules, and there are also some details to be aware of regarding the rules that we needed to communicate to Nihon Kotsu for this seminar. It was difficult for us to explain these points to Nihon Kotsu, so it was very helpful that Shinke-san helped us think about how to explain them. Before the meeting with Nihon Kotsu, we asked him a lot, like “Is this the right way to express it?” and “Will this get the point across?”.
Ishiguchi: We do not usually speak directly with company employees in our educational activities. At the same time, Nihon Kotsu employees are not used to interacting with pharmaceutical company employees, and without JTB acting as a mediator, there probably would have been a miscommunication and things would not have gone well. The presence of JTB made us both feel at ease in our interactions.
Shinke: We have a long-standing relationship with the taxi industry, and our areas of expertise include event management including seminars and survey design. I believe that AstraZeneca's expertise was successfully incorporated into this. We made the most of our strengths in this collaboration.
※The information in this article was current at the time of the interview. Please note that affiliations, etc. may differ from today.
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