NORTH CAROLINA: “New Tool to Fight Syphilis? Walmart Gift Cards”
MSNBC.com (09.14.09):: Brian Alexander
Forsyth County, N.C., has already recorded 140 syphilis cases this year, more than triple the number for 2008, and the poor economy may be partly to blame, say officials there. However, the economy also motivated many residents to get screened for the disease when the county Department of Public Health offered $10 Walmart gift cards as an incentive. About half of 603 people tested during a recent neighborhood canvassing effort were enticed to consent in part by the gift cards, officials estimated.
“In the South, we have more people living in poverty. They have little or no health insurance,” said Evelyn Foust, director of communicable diseases for North Carolina’s Department of Public Health. Transportation to health care providers, especially in rural areas, is also a major barrier for some residents, she said.
Economic incentives also helped boost participation in North Carolina’s recent HIV education and testing program “Get Real, Get Tested,” which used McDonald’s cards. “I was in Rocky Mount where we screened 500 people in one weekend, when a woman came up to me and said, ‘You know, with their dollar menu, I can get five meals out of this.’”
North Carolina used federal funds to purchase the Walmart gift cards, and it used its own funds to deploy a mobile testing van and workers to help Forsyth County in its door-to-door campaign. The expense is worth it, since the interventions work, said Foust.
Under the earlier National Plan to Eliminate Syphilis, the state tested all jail inmates, alerted private doctors to screen for the disease, and conducted interventions similar to the one in Forsyth County. However, the program’s success led to its funding getting cut as the caseload fell. “In one year, I lost close to $1 million,” Foust said.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009