142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

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Outbreak Week: A Viral Approach to Preparedness

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 8:45 AM - 9:00 AM

Jessica Mark, MPH, CPH , Director of Digital Content, Home Front Communications, Washington, DC
Joe Marx , Senior Communications Officer, Public Health Team, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, DC
Teresa Mozur , Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, NJ
Catherine Andrews, MSJ , Home Front Communications, Washington, DC
Carlos Roig, MA, MSJ , Media and Content Strategy, Home Front Communications, Washington, DC
Background: Infectious diseases are the third leading U.S. cause of death, also resulting in 15 million deaths worldwide each year. The Outbreaks: Protecting Americans from Infectious Diseases report by Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found major gaps in the country’s ability to prevent, control, and treat infectious disease outbreaks because of outdated systems and limited resources.

Methods: “Outbreak Week” was created as a moment in time to catalyze discussion within the public health community about whether we’re prepared as a nation to handle the next big outbreak. The effort aimed to engage the public health workforce with dynamic content and social media outreach. Content was developed with shareability in mind and included engaging stories, infographics, custom images designed for social media use, and a viral video. Dedicated outreach to targeted organizations and social media accounts provided rich distribution channels for the suite of content.

Results: Outbreak Week resulted in an 83% surge in NewPublicHealth.org (the Foundation's public health blog) traffic, 3,400 new Twitter followers of @RWJF_PubHealth and 47.6 million Twitter impressions. Other organizations joined the conversation using the hashtag #OutbreakWeek, adding their own data and stories in addition to sharing NewPublicHealth content.

Conclusion: This moment-in-time model serves as a case study for using an online campaign to spark interdisciplinary dialogue around an important issue. Presenters will discuss other examples of viral content and distribution tactics to promote public health issues. The lessons learned from these examples can be replicated and scaled to a variety of efforts and budgets based on available resources.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Communication and informatics
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
Discuss how to bring the work of public health to life by taking advantage of the right moment, using the right platforms and developing creative and engaging content List the types of content and outreach that encourage lively conversation among a wide audience Formulate outreach plans using proven concepts and best practices at any level of resources to develop a vibrant, far-reaching dialog around critical health issues

Keyword(s): Communication, Social Media

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Carlos leads Home Front’s Media and Content Strategy Division with a strong emphasis on creative storytelling, strategic distribution and engagement on multiple platforms. He built and established the agency’s first Digital Media Strategy team before merging the digital, broadcast and print units into a single, integrated division. Prior to joining Home Front, Carlos led the site-wide development of niche-targeted online communities at USATODAY.com and directed USA Today’s full digital coverage of the 2008 election cycle.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.