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Planned Parenthood's Zika Awareness Effort Targets At-risk Mothers in Collier

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
Photo: Jerry Lai via Flickr Creative Commons
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The Florida Channel
Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.

Hoping to get ahead of potential Zika outbreaks, Planned Parenthood of Collier County is launching a new education initiative aimed at prevention. While anyone is a target for a mosquito carrying the virus, the awareness program aims to help women protect their unborn children from the virus in underserved communities like Immokalee.

With materials in English, Spanish, Creole, and pictorial brochures and posters, Planned Parenthood hopes to reach more people who might otherwise miss the message on how to reduce risk of exposure, and the profound health impacts Zika infection can have on unborn children.

Kathleen Wiggs-Strayner, the vice president of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida's clinical operations, joins the show to talk about the need for communication in South Florida communities.  

Also joining the show is FCGU professor and program director of Community and Public Health, Dr. Charles Daramola, to explain how this need was identified and where community outreach efforts stand.

Copyright 2020 WGCU. To see more, visit WGCU.

Matthew Smith is a reporter and producer of WGCU’s Gulf Coast Live.
Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.