#TICfreely LA

Health Care Access

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative

The CDC estimates that 1/50 children, 43,500 in Los Angeles County, have TS or a Tic Disorder, but that 50% of people with these conditions go undiagnosed. This leads to a cycle of systemic discrimination against our community. Low diagnosis rates mean we are unable to prove how many people are affected. Without accurate prevalence numbers, we cannot make the strongest arguments for support, which ultimately results in a lack of funding and awareness. This deters medical professionals from specializing in treatment or research of TS, which perpetuates low diagnosis rates. This problem is particularly impactful in underserved communities (BIPOC, low income, Spanish-speaking) facing barriers to access to healthcare. As a result, lack of awareness leads people with TS face stigma at school, work, and in their community. Until awareness and funding for TS catches up to its prevalence, we will be left behind and misunderstood. We need to be seen and accepted as we are.

To fight the cycle of discrimination, we will launch a first of its kind campaign called #TICfreelyLA to raise awareness and promote diagnosis of TS in Los Angeles County. The campaign will make Los Angeles a leader in TS awareness and a pillar of neurodiversity. The first step will be to deploy our engaging resources that detail the recognition of symptoms of TS and the steps to receiving a diagnosis through ad campaigns in local digital, TV, radio, and print media. These ads will encourage people to attend community informational sessions and webinars to learn more. We will also develop digital content to be shared on social media by the TAA and through collaborations with influencer partners and advocates. We will make partnerships with local education institutions like LAUSD by distributing materials to schools, conducting awareness workshops for educators, and collaborating with schools to include TS awareness in health education curricula. By leveraging partnerships through our UCLA Center of Excellence, we will do the same in healthcare institutions, encouraging providers to learn how to recognize and treat TS in their patients, particularly encouraging training in CBIT, the only behavioral therapy proven to effectively treat TS. Keeping in mind the heightened undiagnosed rate in underserved communities, our campaign will include tailored outreach to these populations, including Spanish content, ensuring we reach everyone in Los Angeles County.

As a result of this campaign, Los Angeles County will become the leading example of a community that embraces its neurodiversity and encourages its people to #TICfreely. By increasing diagnosis rates in Los Angeles County, our program will provide relief and hope to Angelenos who previously may not have even known there was a name for their problem. With a diagnosis, they will be able to receive appropriate accommodations in school or their workplace, setting them up for improved short and long-term success. Los Angeles will also see an increase in healthcare providers who can recognize and treat TS, reducing wait times for doctors' visits and the rate of misdiagnosis. By educating employers, teachers, medical professionals, and the LA community about TS, increased awareness will also reduce the stigma that our community faces, which will have a measurable impact on the mental health and social wellbeing of Angelenos with lived experience of TS and neurodiversity.

While this will be the first-ever local awareness campaign by the TAA, we have measures in place for evaluating our awareness efforts generally. These include tracking impressions and engagement on digital content, measuring attendance at our webinars and/or talks, tracking and evaluating media coverage of our efforts, and soliciting feedback from our community. Our marketing department has more than two and half decades of experience in monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on marketing campaigns, 15 of which were focused specifically on monitoring the impact of cause-focused awareness campaigns. For years the TAA has evaluated our awareness efforts' impact at the national level and we will use those lessons-learned in tracking the KPIs shared and evaluating their engagements and conversion rates.