The objective is twofold: to reinforce the message that violence is a preventable public health problem and to call attention to the accomplishments of the honorees.

Broad-based Advertising

Over the past decade, advertisements with photos of the honorees and brief descriptions of their work have appeared in leading newspapers throughout California — for example, the Fresno Bee, Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, San Diego Union-Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News. The ads have ranged in size from a quarter- to full-page.

An important part of our strategy is placement in ethnic news media that reflect the honorees’ backgrounds and the communities they serve. We have translated and adapted the California Peace Prize advertisements for Spanish-language newspapers such as Hoy, La Opinión, Nuevo Mundo (San Jose) and Vida en el Valle (Fresno).

Ad placement in the Asian/Pacific American media market has included the following Vietnamese-language newspapers: Thoi Bao (Oakland), Viet Merc (San Jose) and the Viet Bao Kinh (Orange County and Los Angeles). Ads in Japanese community-oriented newspapers have included Rafu Shimpo and Pacific Citizen, the biweekly newspaper of the Japanese American Citizen’s league.

In 1997, Chea Sok Lim — a Cambodian-American who left his war-ravaged homeland only to discover violence in this country — was recognized with a California Peace Prize. Since we wanted our communications efforts to resonate with Cambodian-American communities, we decided to work with IW Group, an Asian-American communications firm, to assist us in sharing Chea Sok Lim’s story and explaining the public health approach to violence prevention from a Cambodian cultural and linguistic perspective.

To acknowledge honorees of Native American heritage, ads have been placed in Indian Country Today and Native American Times, the largest independently owned Native American newspaper in the United States. And for honorees of African-American descent, we have targeted newspapers that include the Los Angeles Sentinel, the Los Angeles Watts Times, the San Francisco Bay View and the Sacramento Observer.

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