Sometimes it's not about you: An inside look at a public health campaign

Many times, an effective public health message includes a variety of audiences. In the case of vaccine awareness and the concept of “herd immunity,” this was especially true. The audience wasn’t just parents of small children who are seeing their pediatrician regularly for well-child check-ups and immunizations. The audience included the friends and family of a chronically ill child or an elderly patient with a compromised immune system, as well as those who are simply unfamiliar with how herd immunity works. 

We asked ourselves: who can best deliver this message to this particular audience?  We landed on: the patients themselves. Introducing the patients, their stories, their images served to not only grab the attention of the hypothetical family members and friends, but to reinforce the idea that sometimes we do things not just for ourselves, but for others -- those we know and love, those we don’t, and those who simply can’t protect themselves. Because it’s the right thing to do.

Our vaccine literacy campaign took "Know Better; Choose Better" to another height. Choosing better not just for yourself or your family, but for others. Studies show that many people who are anti-vaccine aren't familiar with "herd immunity" -- the factor that protects weaker immune systems that can't be vaccinated.(1)  

KineticHealth set out to explain why some people can't receive immunizations, and why that makes it all the more important that people who can, do. We hope that bringing attention to the science and safety of vaccines, and providing a reason to talk about the subject, improves health literacy on this critical yet controversial topic. We also hope that by sharing the patient stories and public health messages, audiences who might disagree are compelled to re-evaluate, if for no other reason than that someone they like and respect has shared the content and agreed.

Tackling the tough messages that address today’s most current public health concerns is a specialty of KineticHealth. We don’t shy away from hard topics. We’ve developed campaigns on subjects like Opioid Abuse/Misuse, Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes, Prenatal Health, and Oral Health awareness.

What topic would your organization like to see addressed? 

Where is patient literacy lacking from where you sit?  

We’d love to hear from you.

    [According to Pew Research, people with low knowledge about science are also less likely to see high preventive health benefits from vaccines. While 91% of those with high science knowledge said vaccines provided high preventive health benefits, only 55% of those with low science knowledge agreed. In addition, those with low science knowledge were more likely to consider the risk of side effects to be medium or high (47% vs. 19% of those with high science knowledge). Americans who did not correctly recognize the definition for “herd immunity” were less likely to rate the benefits of the MMR vaccine as high and were comparatively more likely to see the risk of side effects as at least medium. (Herd immunity refers to the health benefits that occur when most people in a population have been vaccinated.) ]