Building a Social Media Community of Practice for Iowa’s Local Public Health Agencies

Anne Abbott, Lina Tucker Reinders

Research output: Contribution to conferencePresentation

Abstract

According to the Revised 2020 10 Essential Public Health Services public health workers need to be able to, “Communicate effectively to inform and education people about health, factors that influence it, and how to improve it”. The ongoing COVID-19 has further shown that health communication is an essential piece of public health practice as the public’s need for clear, scientifically accurate, up-to-date, and persuasive information and public health messages is currently extremely high. While many public health workers receive some training on emergency and crisis communication; few public health workers, particularly those working in small/rural local public health agencies receive formal training on public health communication methods related to creating persuasive messages/campaigns and limiting unintended consequences of messaging. Training on the use of social media for these and other communication purposes is even more scarce, even for workers with formal public health degrees.

Recognizing this need, the Iowa Public Health Association established a Social Media Community of Practice (SM COP) for local public health agencies (LPHAs) in Iowa in September of 2020. The three overarching goals of the SM COP are to a) increase the number of high-quality public health messages shared by LPHAs b) increase the reach of public health messages and, c) provide social support for individuals tasked with LPHA health communication activities. The SM COP facilitator and members use a variety of strategies to achieve these goals. While the initial SM COP project was created in response to COVID-19 messaging needs in Iowa (e.g., mask use, social distancing, vaccination), it now focuses on broader public health topics and other areas.

The proposed presentation will share national data and other sources of information on why other state affiliates may want to consider forming health communication and specifically social media-related trainings, and networks like the SM COP; describe the process IPHA engaged in to create Iowa’s SM COP and provide additional information and lessons learned on the Iowa SM COP’s current structure and functioning, as well as future plans. Preliminary data from a survey of SM COP members will also be shared.
Original languageAmerican English
StatePublished - 27 Oct 2021
Externally publishedYes
EventAmerican Public Health Association (APHA) 2021 Annual Meeting & Expo - Denver, CO
Duration: 27 Oct 2021 → …

Conference

ConferenceAmerican Public Health Association (APHA) 2021 Annual Meeting & Expo
Period27/10/21 → …

EGS Disciplines

  • Public Health

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