Operation Immunization, an award-winning social marketing program, is proving that big outreach ideas don't require deep pockets.
The Los Angeles program, launched in 1993 with $150,000 in seed money from the Unihealth Foundation and local businesses and community organizations, has immunized more than 250,000 children and established 35 clinics in low-income areas.
The program's core goals involve providing immunization health education and vaccines to area families and schools, where a measles epidemic cost the county $35 million in medical care expenses in 1989-1991.
As with most social marketing programs, the goals can't be achieved over night. In this case, the program's founders committed to 10 years of support to combat the common recurring vaccine-preventable childhood disease epidemics, says Dr. Karl E. Kniseley II, president of Unihealth, an integrated healthcare service provider in Southern California.
Tapping Into Existing Resources
Operation Immunization has cemented partnerships with more than 32 local businesses, government and community organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, the departments of health in California and Los Angeles counties, McDonald's [MCD] and K-Mart [KM]. These partnerships were initiated by first asking for support: highlighting that the solution to the immunization problem was tied to community action, and second practicing persistence: a willingness to make several phone calls and company presentations, says Greg Waskul of Waskul World Wide Communications in Glendale, Calif., who helped found the initiative.
Waskul presented the program's strategies at the American Hospital Association's Society for Healthcare Marketing and Strategy and Market Development annual conference in Philadelphia last month.
These were the tactics that worked for building community support for Operation Immunization:
- Developing a provocative response that helps solve the problem.
- Breaking the initiative down to smaller challenges for communicators.
- Explaining the program's mission in a compelling manner to the media and potential community sponsors.
Pro Bono Ad Campaign
The public service announcements (PSA) (radio and print ads) are the cornerstone of the campaign. The ads featured the tagline "Immunize on Time! Your baby's counting on you!" and building blocks that highlight when parents should have their babies immunized - two months, four months, six months, 12 months and 15 months. It cost only $5,000 to produce and resulted in impressive exposure.
The broadcast ads rank in the top three PSAs aired in California and millions of promotional pieces have been distributed to parents in the state, according to Waskul.
Another successful aspect of the promotion involved "A Parent's Promise" which asked parents to sign a pledge to follow the immunization schedule. It generated more than 300,000 signatures from parents in the Los Angeles area who received the pledge at area clinics, schools and community centers.
And to reach young African-American women with the immunization message, a PSA campaign, featuring the popular rap group, Salt-N-Pepa, was aired on popular entertainment channels like MTV and BET.
Next Steps
The next phase of the program is Operation Immunization 2002, which started this year. Its goals are to expand the initiative to additional at-risk communities like South Central and North Hollywood, says Kniseley.
The program's boldest objective is to increase clinic visits for immunizations by 25 percent by the year 2000. Reaching this goal requires going back to the old models of school-based outreach, says Dr. Kniseley. "These models work best because parents [in low-income communities] tend to trust institutions like schools and churches. However, they don't trust hospitals, so we constantly have to innovate the program with this in mind."
The strategies will focus on developing community-wide programs within area schools and will involve:
- School-based immunization health education initiatives, called "ABC of Health" that will target Los Angeles county schools;
- School-based parent immunization health education workshops; and
- Classroom-based immunization instructional CD-ROMs for teachers. (Unihealth, Dr. Karl E. Kniseley II, 818/238-6705; Waskul World Wide Communications, Greg Waskul, 818/547-4635)
Launching Outreach Initiatives
Although community health initiatives don't have to be costly, they do require a high level of creativity, commitment and passion, says Greg Waskul of Waskul World Wide Communications, in Glendale, Calif., who helped launch the Los Angeles Operation Immunization in 1993. So far, the effort has resulted in getting more than 250,000 children immunized. To improve the health status of your community, Waskul suggests:
- Incorporate your outreach program into an existing local program;
- Help spearhead the expansion of a well-recognized regional or national program like the Revlon Run/Walk campaign for cancer; and
- Bulletproof your concept by talking to potential community partners to gauge interest and to understand concerns or barriers upfront.
Source: Waskul World Wide Communications