The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #62626

Susie McCarthy, MPH, CHES, Youth Media Campaign, CDC, 4770 Buford Hwy., NE, MS K-40, atlanta, GA 30341-3717, 770-488-6480, smccarthy@cdc.gov and Faye Wong, MPH, CDC's Youth Media Campaign, CDC, 4770 Buford Highway, NE., Mailstop K-40, Atlanta, GA 30341-3717.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) VERB^TM Campaign is a national, multicultural health promotion campaign whose mission is to increase and maintain physical activity in youth age 9-13. The campaign uses paid advertising, community events and partnerships as strategies for achieving campaign goals. In addition to a national effort, partnership development focuses on creating community-level partnerships in nine cities to promote sustainability of the campaign and its messages.

In each of the nine cities the campaign has fostered development of a network of “VERB^TM ambassadors” whose members represent a variety of community sectors. These ambassadors assist the CDC and the creative agencies hired by the campaign in executing campaign activities. The ambassadors are an integral part of a unique CDC-commercial agency-community organization triad, each arm having specific roles and responsibilities in promoting youth involvement in physical activity.

Initial data collected from VERB^TM ambassadors show that the community ambassador framework has been successful in developing partnerships to support implementation of the VERB campaign at the community level. Yet data indicate this approach has also yielded challenges in extending the support of a national campaign to the local level.

This presentation will highlight the successes and challenges of building community-level partnerships to support a national media campaign. Learnings will be shared about the process used to develop and maintain VERB^TM ambassador networks; activities conducted at the community-level to support the national campaign; and data collected by CDC to evaluate the ambassador frameworks and track activities accomplished by these ambassador networks.

Learning Objectives:

• At the end of the session, the participant (learner) will be able to: Describe how the VERB campaign developed community-level partnerships, Describe the role of the VERB ambassadors, and List at least three outcomes of the community-level partnerships.

Keywords: Child Health Promotion, Community Collaboration

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.