Prevention Through Partnerships: Empowering Parent-Child Discussions About the Risk of Alcohol and Cancer

Catherine McCall, MS; Allison Antoine, MPH; Sarah Kerch, MPH; Joshua Skowron; Noelle K. LoConte, MD

WMJ. 2025;124(4):368-370.

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ABSTRACT

Background: Alcohol use is increasing in Wisconsin. We aimed to improve a state public health campaign around youth drinking to increase awareness of alcohol as a carcinogen.
Methods: The campaign was expanded and distributed via targeted social media advertisements and a directed campaign in a Wisconsin county with high rates of alcohol consumption.

Results: The media campaign outperformed benchmarks by 23.6%, delivering 1.65 million impressions. Total billboard impressions exceeded expectations by 46%. Across all digital tactics, there was a collective click-through rate of 0.42%. Facebook had the largest audience with over 128 000 total impressions, exceeding expectations by 28%. Cancer-specific related messaging engaged slightly higher click-through rates among Facebook audiences than impact messaging (0.47% vs 0.36%).

Discussion: Adding cancer-related messaging was effective in this expanded Wisconsin state youth drinking campaign.

Author affiliations: University of Wisconsin (UW) School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin (McCall, LoConte); UW Carbone Cancer Center, Madison, Wisconsin (Antoine, Kerch, LoConte); Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology/Palliative Care, UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin (LoConte); Wisconsin Cancer Collaborative, Madison, Wisconsin (Antoine); KW2, Madison, Wisconsin (Skowron).
Corresponding author: Noelle K. LoConte, MD, FASCO, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, 600 Highland Ave, MC 5666, Madison, WI 53792, email Ns3@medicine.wisc.edu; ORCID ID 0000-0002-3883-4153
Financial disclosures: None declared.
Funding/support: This work was supported by University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA014520 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by the Cooperative Agreement Number, NU58DP006328 and the Wisconsin Department of Health and Human Services.
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to acknowledge Allison Weber, Department of Health Services, and REACH, Calumet County’s substance misuse prevention coalition, for their contributions and support of this project. This work was presented at the Alcohol Policy Conference in Washington, DC, in May 2024, and the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Seminar in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in October 2024.

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