The Jefferson County Public Health Service (JCPHS) in New York State credits a broad-based media campaign with increasing vaccine uptake. Public Information Officer (PIO), Faith Lustik, who spearheaded the campaign, was assisted by a team of experienced health promotion staff members. The staff, all of whom have training in social marketing, established strong contacts with local media, as well as varied community partners. The team designed a strategy focused on three key areas: vaccination clinics, location, and promotion to encourage people to get vaccinated.
The number of people showing up to various vaccination clinics in December 2009, when the media campaign began, was fewer than 200 a day. That number steadily climbed and peaked at 824 a day by the end of the campaign in January 2010.
During this period, more than 4,000 people from the county and non-military personnel from the nearby Fort Drum military base (at the time, soldiers were vaccinated at the base, but not their families) were immunized.
The goal of the media campaign team was to get people listening to the ads at least six times or more to foster behavioral change. The planners used this concept as the basis for calculating numbers of ads and times ads would be read or viewed. The campaign covered all mainstream and contemporary media genres, including: radio, television (cable and broadcast), newspapers, visual ads (bus, posters, fliers), social media (Facebook, Twitter, Emails, Listservs), and the Internet. Using multiple media platforms, the JCPHS targeted people from diverse racial, generational, and socio-economic backgrounds. Additionally, messages were crafted with a consistent theme which increased the likelihood of being received by any one individual multiple times, Lustik said. She estimated that well over half of the 117,000 people in Jefferson County were informed of available clinics at least six times during the campaign.
Press releases were submitted to each news outlet containing information about influenza, prevention methods and details about the clinics. Besides numerous purchased ads, the public health staff promoted writing about the vaccination campaign in opinion pieces. The county public health department also sought to place ads near existing health stories.
In order to maximize funding, the county health department extended its reach through partnerships with worksites, churches, human service organizations, health providers, municipalities, and businesses. The JCPHS provided resources such as posters and fliers to spread the vaccination message to employees, members, and clients. Two examples of such partnerships were the City of Watertown Planning and Recreational Departments and the North Country Children's Clinic (NCCC). The city distributed fliers to customers and also placed the posters in prominent kiosks located throughout the downtown area. The NCCC used its Twitter account and Facebook pages to advertise the vaccination clinics on the internet.
The JCPHS approach of combining statistics about immunization and clinic information proved successful. This method garnered attention from all local media outlets for television and several radio stations as well. One radio station invited a JCPHS staff member to appear on a morning radio show to discuss the campaign; the staff used this opportunity to discuss clinic details.
Planning and managing an influenza vaccination campaign through the county's Incident Command Structure helped the campaign succeed, Lustik said. She added that future public health media campaigns will build upon the lessons learned with the novel H1N1 influenza response.
