Connecting Communities to COVID Resources:
Pandemic Health Navigator Program
Challenge:
To adequately address community needs during the pandemic crisis, the Illinois Public Health Association launched the COVID-19 Pandemic Health Navigator (PHN) program, focused on engaging Illinois community-based organizations (CBOs), Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and residents across nine regions that serve marginalized and vulnerable populations.
Our challenge was to help the IPHA understand the different perceptions of COVID in different regions of the state and conduct a broad communications and marketing campaign targeting diverse communities with tailored messaging addressing their unique questions and concerns.
Solution:
Our solution focused on Navigator recruitment, stakeholder engagement, research and branding, content development and launching a fully integrated public education campaign for COVID education and resource coordination.
Highlights
Built an educational curriculum, designed branded marketing materials, and developed messages to resonate with local communities.
Conducted extensive research of internal and external stakeholders and surveyed 800 Illinois residents representing diverse communities and impacted counties to gauge COVID perceptions and marketing channels.
Designed an integrated marketing and advertising campaign to reach target audiences.
Developed a list of key legislators for outreach, sharing news of the PHN Program and keeping them informed.
Result:
As a result of this integrated and multi-faceted strategy, the Pandemic Health Navigator Program hit a number of achievements in the battle against COVID-19:
85+ community-based organizations and federally qualified health centers participated
800+ Community Health Workers hired and trained
300+ million earned media impressions and more than 15 million paid advertising impressions since the start of the program
19,000+ residents have been provided resources across the state of Illinois
This program was recently awarded two Gold Stevie Awards for Women in Business in categories for Community Involvement Program of the Year and Communications
