In the fall of 2007, the Connecticut Department of Public Health launched a campaign to increase pandemic awareness. As a part of this effort, planners identified the top six or seven languages spoken in the state. Local health departments were asked to reach out to community organizations that support these populations, particularly faith-based organizations. Health departments shared general pandemic information and encouraged the organizations to prepare.
With the emergence of H1N1 in 2009, the Connecticut Department of Public Health drew on these connections to spread important emergency health information to some of its largest non-English speaking populations. The department paid for professionals to translate critical materials into the chosen languages, and then called upon local faith-based organizations to review the documents for accuracy. This vetting process led to buy-in by the participating organizations, which then agreed to communicate and distribute the important information to their members. Many faith-based organizations even posted links to the state's web page in the appropriate language on their website.
This process had numerous advantages. It provided a method for distributing health information via trusted sources. Department staff felt that using religious leaders as messengers for information on H1N1 would lend credibility to the message. In addition, many faith-based communities serve populations that are hard-to-reach, such as non-English-speaking populations, urban populations and undocumented residents. Their leaders are often very involved in the community and able to focus the message to the needs of that community.
The initiative has provided some surprising results. For example, although department employees knew they had a large Spanish-speaking population, they didn't expect their Vietnamese and Polish web pages to continuously remain in the top 20 pages hit on their website.
The initial success of this initiative has led to plans for expansion in the near future. Connecticut is working on a correspondence that will be sent to 500-700 religious organizations asking them to post a link to the state's website on their pages, providing them a short message on the status of H1N1 that could be read during services, creating an opportunity to sign up for an e-mail list to receive health and emergency messages, advising whom to contact to set up influenza vaccination clinics, and small notices/advertisements about influenza and vaccination that may be incorporated into weekly news bulletins.
Overall, this collaboration has created an information channel that could far exceed the H1N1 response. It is a foundation for future emergencies and outreach initiatives.
