Heal a Cell INC Marketing Plan Part III, Marketing Plan Example

Target Market

Heal a Cell Inc. is company that provides meals, education and care for the young and old with the disease of sickle cell anemia (SCD). The Heal a Cell Inc. target market will be based on the identification of the African American population demographics that will be served. The customers will be African American families that have children from the ages of four and under need to be tested early for sickle cell anemia. Heal a Cell wants to market to hospitals, family physicians and pediatricians to provide testing for all children at the age of four years old. Heal a Cell Inc. will market our services to African Americans with SCD by bringing about new platforms of delivering new clinical options, ground breaking research, and establishing the trust of African American families.

Heal a Cell Inc. plans to market to the African American community providing social and public health education concerning the devastating effects of SCD. The organization will work with organizations such as Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to develop platforms that are more educational for African American patients with SCD. In addition, Heal a Cell Inc. will market and deliver informative educational data to help the patient, practitioners, and social agencies bring useful treatment options. The African American community is being underserve because of a lack of awareness and additional research on sickle cell in relation to other chronic diseases suffered by African Americans. The African American population has other chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and strokes. African Americans have the highest rate of strokes with African American children from the ages of two to five. The research found that the need for African American families to test their young children as early as possible because the symptoms may be present prior to the age of four. In the marketing to the African American community, one of the priorities will be ensuring families can afford the early testing along with working with pediatrics national wide to include the testing during the children’s physical.

Demographics

Heal a Cell Inc. will market to the African Americans in the following 7 states Georgia, North Carolina, New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The demographic profile will be families with children that are under 4 years old because this population is underserved because a lack of resources. The secondary market will be the parents because the sickle cell trait is passed down without the parents realizing or understanding the disease. It is estimated that about 1 in 500 African-Americans are born with the sickle cell disease (Womenshealth.gov, 2010). Heal a Cell company will address the African American population that does not have the need resources for families to address the sickle cell disease .In the United States today, there is has approximated that 70,000 to 100,000 people primary African Americans suffer with SCD U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.(2010). The Heal a Cell Inc. will target this population with social networking and public programs.

There are two types of SCD that need to be identified by the African American family which are African Americans with the inherited two sickle cell genes (“S”) and the African Americans that inherit the beta thalassemia”0” and “+” and the sickle cell gene “S”. The Heal a Cell Inc. will market to families for free genetic testing because they cannot afford these tests.

Psychographics

The African American beliefs concerning sickle cell anemia testing is one of mistrust and the lack of knowledge about sickle cell anemia. In a study performed by Boyd et al.(2005) of 264 African American women concerning their attitude and knowledge levels concerning sickle cell anemia. The results were astonishing because before the test was given over 30% of the African American women withdrew from the study because they did know anything about SCD. This is indicative of the community and families knowledge level concerning the deadly sickle cell anemia disease. In addition, a group study indicated that African Americans did not trust newborn testing and they were not aware that the testing existed. The study found that 45% of the African American participants was not privy to all the available testing and was not aware and did not understand the effects of this sickle cell anemia testing (Long, Thomas, Grubs, Gettig & Krishnamurti, 2011).

Ethical Issues

The ethical issues are clear that African Americans with sickle cell anemia are prejudice because their records my used by insurance companies to deny coverage or needed future treatments. As result of the often-publicized denial of claims because of genetic testing, that represents expensive test and treatments. It is unethical for the insurance company to have access to genetic testing results while making a decision on coverage or life insurance policies. The healthcare insurance companies have prejudices against patients that are a predestine regiments of diagnostic genetic testing. There is historical evidence genetic discrimination has existed and still has creates ethical concerns today. The US Healthcare system in early 1970s in which several states in the United States made it mandatory that African Americans families had to be tested for the sickle cell anemia (Fulda, 2006). The same ethical issues exist today, however, it is the insurance companies that are practicing discrimination.

Legal Issues

The legal surrounds the mandatory blood testing or drug testing jobs that provide results that include sickle cell anemia. The hospitals have mandatory testing for employees or consultants to ensure they do not have certain diseases that can be transmitted in the hospital. The hospital has access to the results that indicate the patient has sickle cell anemia thus denying access to the hospital in fear that this will be transferred to a patient. The legal issues become critical because the hospital is not looking for sickle cell anemia but are taking action on the results, which is unethical and illegal. The drug test was performed only to determine if the patient was on drugs or other vaccinations. The information concerning the sickle cell anemia is still private information of the patient because they did not give the hospital permission to make public these results.

Social Issues

The social issues are the embarrassment of the disease, which African American families may not come forward in a public setting to receive information or testing. The African American populations suffer in silence because of the reactions to other diseases by society.

In addition, there is a lack of support for the sickle cell in society. There are other diseases that have an enormous amounts of advertising, marketing and financial support to help treat the diseases, which are cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy. The lack of social support and distribution of information concerning sickle cell anemia is evident in a study by Long et al. (2011), found that out of 261 African American women over 30% of the participants did not have any knowledge or information concerning sickle cell anemia, which is disturbing.

Relationships

The ethical relationship with legal is based on the necessary legal actions to fight against the unethical issues such as drug or blood test looking for drugs, but they find sickle cell anemia disease. The same premise of the relationship of legal and ethical issues in the discrimination of those people that have genetic testing which the results are accessed by the health and life insurance agencies. It is unethical and illegal in both cases of blood testing and genetic testing therefore, legal representation is needed. The social issue relationship to legal and ethical is the moral compass in our society that allows this discrimination by payers, health and life carriers. There are other social issues that are unethical requiring legal representation is lack of resources and awareness for the African American community. The donations are being made to the Sickle Cell Agencies aimed at educating the African American women but those funds are not reaching the African American community. In a study performed by Boyd et al.(2005) found that out of 264 women participants 30% of the African American women withdrew because they have zero knowledge of sickle cell anemia(SCD). The legal, ethical, and social issue are related which the sickle cell anemia organizations receiving funding should brought to court with a legal lawsuit.

References

Boyd, J., Watkins, A., Price, C., Fleming, F., & Debaun, M. (2005).Journal of the National Medical Association. 97(1):62-67

KG, Lykens K. Ethical issues in predictive genetic testing: a public health perspective. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2006; 32(3):143-147. doi:10.1136/jme.2004.010272.

Long, K. A., Thomas, S. B., Grubs, R. E., Gettig, E. A., &Krishnamurti, L. (2011). Attitudes and beliefs of African-Americans toward genetics, genetic testing, and sickle cell disease education and awareness. Journal of genetic counseling, 20(6), 572-592.?

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2010). Sickle Cell Anemia Disease Awareness and Education Strategy Development Workshop  Report. National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Publication No. 56-205N

Womenshealth.gov. (2010).Minority women’s health: Sickle cell anemia. Retrieved from http://womenshealth.gov/minority-health/african-americans/sickle-cell-anemia.html