A citizen engagement project sought to bring a public voice into the crafting of pandemic plans in the Kansas City metropolitan area. One KC Voice, a metro-wide alliance of civic organizations, held 23 citizen meetings designed to understand the values that the community held around pandemic influenza. Four workshops followed these meetings, so that citizens could identify actions that could be taken by the community and the health departments to mitigate their concerns.
The workshops focused on five main topics identified from the values meetings, and action steps were organized around these topics. The five topics were: 1) Most people know very little about pandemic flu; 2) For most people, the biggest barrier to being able to voluntarily stay at home is the need to earn a paycheck; 3) Very few businesses have pandemic flu plans 4) Few neighborhood, church and school leaders are involved in preparing for pandemic flu; and 5) People will disregard health department advisories if they feel they need to care for children or parents.
The project demonstrates a fairly scalable approach to engaging citizens in pandemic influenza education and preparedness. The workshops are a useful model for expanding awareness of issues and developing a meaningful two-way exchange of ideas.
