The bone bank : a communication campaign to reduce the risk of osteoporosis amongst middle-aged women in Singapore

Abstract

This paper presents The Bone Bank, a public health communications campaign in Singapore designed to educate 42 to 58 year old women on osteoporosis risk reduction measures. Osteoporosis, which can be prevented, causes increased susceptibility to fractures, which can be fatal. Osteoporosis is particularly prevalent here, with Singaporean women above the age of 50 reporting the highest age-adjusted rates of fractures from osteoporosis in Asia. This campaign is launched by four students from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI), Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Through a simple calcium, vitamin D and exercise (abbreviated as ‘CDE’) approach, our campaign educates middle-aged Singaporean women on how to reduce their risk of osteoporosis. Despite COVID-19 limiting the campaign’s offline reach, The Bone Bank was featured on Singapore media, and received media impressions of over 2.6M across digital channels. Middle-aged women exposed to our campaign showed a: (i) 18.15% increase in awareness of osteoporosis risk reduction measures, (ii) 10.16% increase in sense of self- efficacy of performing risk reduction measures, (iii) 14.86% increase in perceived subjective norms of performing risk reduction measures, and (iv) 15.82% increase in intention to adopt ‘CDE’ in their daily lives. The Bone Bank is in talks with its partners and sponsors to develop ways in which the campaign can be continued past its academic deadline. Strengths, limitations and recommendations are discussed in the paper. Relevant documents and data sets can be found in the appendices of this paper.