Through investigation and literature review, we found that the prevalence of IBD is high in middle-aged and elderly people. In selecting propaganda sites, we mainly chose places where middle-aged and elderly people gather to complete our work. We chose the community near the school as the main publicity site, set up booths to explain IBD related knowledge and distributed tissues with the team mascot to promote our public account.
Fig.1. one site of our publicity place
Fig.2. our members are well-prepared to propagandize
IBD, short for inflammatory bowel diseases, includes ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). There are many pathogenic factors, but the symptoms are mainly manifested in diarrhea, abdominal pain, abdominal mass, anemia, fever, malnutrition and so on. We talked mainly about the possible causes. IBD is caused by many factors such as environment, heredity, infection and immunity. Although genetic and immune factors are difficult to prevent, environmental and infection aspects can be prevented to a certain extent.
Fig.3. The elder people were interested in our activity
The community is mainly composed of middle-aged and elderly people. So in the process of explaining, we focused on good living habits and healthy diet. Good living habits include the cliche of not smoking, not staying up late, regular work and rest, appropriate exercise and so on. In terms of healthy diet, our explanation for middle-aged people partly refers to the "pyramid" diet released by the hospitals, that is, taking grains as the staple food, maintaining an appropriate proportion of vegetables, fruits, and high-protein foods such as meat, and reducing the intake of extra sugar, oil, and salt. For the elderly, we put more emphasis on not eating leftovers in order to save money, but eating properly and exercising according to doctor's advice. When there are IBD-related illnesses, especially diarrhea and abdominal pain, we have repeatedly stressed that it is important to seek medical advice to prevent a minor illness from becoming a serious one.
Fig.4. They were scanning QR code of our official account
During the publicity process, we received support from most people, which gave us great encouragement, and we hope we can do better and better in the future. However, we also found that the elderly, who are the hardest hit by IBD, have a stronger stereotype of GM products, so they are actually resistant to synthetic biology products, which caused us to think about our own products. On the one hand, we need to strengthen the popularization of science education, especially for the elderly who are relatively more conservative, how to make them embrace the new technology is a very meaningful proposition; on the other hand, how to ensure the safety of our products and how to make the public believe in the safety of our products, there is a long way to go!