Customized health communications developed for specific local communities are thought to be more effective than “one-size-fits-all” mass campaigns. Even materials that are linguistically appropriate and culturally informed may be insufficient if they ignore the importance of local knowledge, attitudes, and practices. Community-led, hyperlocal communications are those that are developed by and for members of narrowly defined local communities. In this webinar, community leaders will discuss their experiences with this messaging approach and will share tools you can use in your own communications work.
Hosted on March 25, 2021, this training was delivered by Erin Mann, Program Manager and co-Principal Investigator, the National Resource Center for Refugees, Immigrants, and Migrants (NRC-RIM); Courtney Chang, Senior Program Lead, IDEO.org; and Ridhi Arun, Senior Program Coordinator, IDEO.org.
Tools shared:
NRC-RIM’s Community-Led Messaging for COVID-19 Contact Tracing Guidebook
While access to the COVID-19 vaccine starts to expand, our work to manage and prevent the spread of COVID-19 must continue. Contact tracing is a critical tool in our collective approach to ending the pandemic. By leveraging your expertise and extensive knowledge of your community, this companion was designed to support leaders, like yourselves, to create a customized contact tracing messaging campaign that is rooted in your community’s values, motivations, and realities.
We know that customized health communications that are rooted in the needs of affected communities are more effective than mass campaigns. We built this guide to help individual leaders, community-based organizations, and local health departments get the right messages out quickly. If you are looking to build effective COVID-19 messaging materials for your community, this guide is for you.
They have created easy drag-and-drop templates you can use to make your campaign come to life. Here is a video overview of how to use their campaign tools.
Guidebook for COVID-19 Vaccine Messaging
The Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) and IDEO.org worked in partnership with immigrant communities in the Delmarva Peninsula to develop COVID-19 vaccine messaging that resonates with community members. On the linked page are a series of posters, social media assets, and other materials based on MCN's work with the Latino and Haitian Creole communities. The key messages, in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole are:
These tools were developed by NRC-RIM in partnership with IDEO.org, with input from multiple diverse communities.