Reaching out to Protect Young Lives, Using in-House Social Media Resources: A Case Study From Cdc's Injury Center

Background:  Injuries are the leading cause of death for young people from birth to age 19 in the United States. Since December 2008, the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention (DUIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has launched two initiatives aimed to reach parents with proven tips to protect children and teens from leading causes of injury.

Program background: With the knowledge that parents are increasingly active in, and get messages from, the social media stratosphere, DUIP has incorporated social media items as key elements of its “Protect the Ones You Love” initiative to prevent child injury (www.cdc.gov/safechild) and its “Parents Are the Key” pilot campaign to promote safe teen driving (www.cdc.gov/parentsarethekey).   As part of “Protect the Ones You Love”, a series of twelve injury topic-specific podcasts was developed in both English and Spanish. These podcasts share proven tips for preventing burns, drowning, falls, poisoning, injuries from motor vehicle crashes, and sports injuries. As part of the “Parents Are the Key” pilot campaign to promote safe teen driving, a series of badges and buttons, as well as an interactive quiz widget, were developed and promoted in the pilot cities of Little Rock, AR, and Columbus, OH. “Parents Are the Key” will launch more widely in fall 2010, with plans for expanded blogger outreach to promote the use of these social media elements. Also in 2010, a new series of badges and buttons was launched as part of “Protect the Ones You Love”.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  Recorded on-site at CDC, "Protect the Ones You Love" podcasts have reached more than 27,000 listeners.Additionally,  click-throughs to the “Parents Are the Key” website from badges and buttons have evidenced the popularity of these items. The Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention is consistently tracking use of all of these social media items.

Conclusions:  Results have shown that social media items created for these two initiatives have served to broaden reach of messages with no increased cost.

Implications for research and/or practice: This case study shows that social media resources can be created and used to increase reach without increased costs. Messages can be reinforced with the help of social media items, aiding in the health communication goal of disseminating public health information as widely as possible to target audiences.