Shots4Health: Leveraging Social Media and the Internet to Advocate for Childhood Immunization
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Abstract
Faced with declining vaccination rates, we are experimenting with new technologies and approaches to reach out to parents as well as to mobilize physician advocacy as a complement to more traditional Public Health approaches.
Despite their proven efficacy and safety, public confidence in vaccines is declining, and vaccine-preventable infections are on the rise . In our pilot region, Alberta, Canada, childhood immunization rates are 5-20% below target and we have recently seen local vaccine preventable disease outbreaks such as pertussis.
Although parental hesitancy around vaccines is increasing, parents still identify their physician as their most trusted source for immunization information. We as physicians, need to provide parents with effective, timely immunization education and to provide primary health care providers with effective resources and role modeling for immunization education. Anti-vaccination groups use social media to effectively spread messages virally but currently our pilot region lacks a balancing voice from objective informed health practitioners.
The shots4health project is a joint collaboration between infectious disease clinicians and public health to launch and study outcomes from a two-track electronic childhood immunization advocacy campaign, addressing the public and health care workers.
The public track is an integrated platform, consisting of an interactive, mobile, website, active ongoing social media presence on Twitter, Facebook and Blogs, and mobile applications using QR codes tied into existing public health print campaigns. We aim to increase knowledge and address parental vaccine hesitancy via evidence based information from local epidemiology tailored to our population’s demographics. We address current immunization barriers by integrating an online clinic finder, clinic waiting times, personalized immunization calendars and email alerts for appointment reminders. We provide ongoing support for immunization questions and concerns via social media and discussion forums.
The health care track will involve a social networking component where general practitioners can be in direct contact with immunization experts, providing up-to-date information on new vaccines, disease outbreaks and access to a special immunization clinic referral system for complex cases.
A research framework for evaluation and further study is integrated into the strategy. We will measure and track social media statistics, subscriber and follower data and analytics for website demographic and usage data. We will assess immunization barriers and concerns via surveys and questionnaires using emails, website and blogs. This real time feedback, will help us to reevaluate and tailor our advocacy strategies in response to policy/regulatory, socio-demographic and disease epidemiology changes. The outcomes of the shots4health project will be the development, iterative evaluation and refinement of an integrated electronic toolset for promoting effective immunization education and support. Our focus area is Alberta, but we will make all tools available under an opensource license to facilitate advocacy in any region. We hope that increased knowledge of effective advocacy techniques and support among parents and primary care health professionals, will increase our immunization rates and keep our children healthy.
Despite their proven efficacy and safety, public confidence in vaccines is declining, and vaccine-preventable infections are on the rise . In our pilot region, Alberta, Canada, childhood immunization rates are 5-20% below target and we have recently seen local vaccine preventable disease outbreaks such as pertussis.
Although parental hesitancy around vaccines is increasing, parents still identify their physician as their most trusted source for immunization information. We as physicians, need to provide parents with effective, timely immunization education and to provide primary health care providers with effective resources and role modeling for immunization education. Anti-vaccination groups use social media to effectively spread messages virally but currently our pilot region lacks a balancing voice from objective informed health practitioners.
The shots4health project is a joint collaboration between infectious disease clinicians and public health to launch and study outcomes from a two-track electronic childhood immunization advocacy campaign, addressing the public and health care workers.
The public track is an integrated platform, consisting of an interactive, mobile, website, active ongoing social media presence on Twitter, Facebook and Blogs, and mobile applications using QR codes tied into existing public health print campaigns. We aim to increase knowledge and address parental vaccine hesitancy via evidence based information from local epidemiology tailored to our population’s demographics. We address current immunization barriers by integrating an online clinic finder, clinic waiting times, personalized immunization calendars and email alerts for appointment reminders. We provide ongoing support for immunization questions and concerns via social media and discussion forums.
The health care track will involve a social networking component where general practitioners can be in direct contact with immunization experts, providing up-to-date information on new vaccines, disease outbreaks and access to a special immunization clinic referral system for complex cases.
A research framework for evaluation and further study is integrated into the strategy. We will measure and track social media statistics, subscriber and follower data and analytics for website demographic and usage data. We will assess immunization barriers and concerns via surveys and questionnaires using emails, website and blogs. This real time feedback, will help us to reevaluate and tailor our advocacy strategies in response to policy/regulatory, socio-demographic and disease epidemiology changes. The outcomes of the shots4health project will be the development, iterative evaluation and refinement of an integrated electronic toolset for promoting effective immunization education and support. Our focus area is Alberta, but we will make all tools available under an opensource license to facilitate advocacy in any region. We hope that increased knowledge of effective advocacy techniques and support among parents and primary care health professionals, will increase our immunization rates and keep our children healthy.
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