Thunder Bay hepatitis groups turn to Reddit to get information out

A round-table of Thunder Bay, Ont., organizations that work on hepatitis-related issues is capping off a series of events for World Hepatitis Week by hosting anAsk Me Anything, or AMA, on the social media platform Reddit.

HepNet has assembled a panel of experts to answer people's questions about the disease via the popular on-line question and answer forum.

It's an effort to try something different when it comes to communicating with the public, said Eric Shih, the director of education and community development at Elevate NWO.

"AMAs are pretty popular," Shih said. "It definitely skews toward the younger set, but it's a really great way of getting information out. And we thought we'd use it as an opportunity to be able to kind of get information about Hep C and harm reduction and the work that the different agencies and organizations are doing out there."

Elevate is hoping to reach an audience that it might not have reached before, Shih said, and to dispel myths about the disease.

A week of events for World Hepatitis Week

"One good thing about Reddit AMAs is that the questions and the answers live on there, so even though the event is done, people can come back and refer to it," he said.

The event starts at 11:00 a.m. Friday and runs for an hour.

It immediately precedes World Hepatitis Day on Saturday and wraps up a week of local events for World Hepatitis Week, that began with a barbecue and Hep C testing day Monday at the Ontario Addiction Treatment Centre in Westfort.

The calendar of events for the rest of the week is as follows:

July 24: Info fair and Hep C testing from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Victoriaville Mall.
July 25: Info and Hep C testing at the Victoria Avenue Urban Park event from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
July 26: Barbeque and Hep C testing and information at Elevate NWO, 106 Cumberland St. N., from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
July 27: Hep C Ask Me Anything on the Reddit r/iama subredditfrom 11:00 a.m. til noon.