Using Facebook to Organize Suburban Communities Impacted by Heroin

Background:  Long Island has been hit hard by an emergent heroin crisis among adolescents and young people. Treatment admissions have tripled in the last three years, as have fatal overdoses. Calls to the Long Island Council's hotline are up 400% in the last year and demand for services has skyrocketed. Our primary task was this: Get opiate prevention information and a link to services into the hands of as many people, educators and community leaders as quickly as possible. Our secondary goal was to build a cadre of concerned citizens who could advocate for more treatment slots in our region, more school-based prevention programs, more funding for community-based organizations and legislative changes related to insurance coverage for behavioral health. The main challenges we faced were Long Island's immense size, our suburban nature which makes community organizing much harder than in urban areas and lack of a budget for this project.

Program background:  This Spring, we launched a Facebook group called "People United to Stop Heroin on Long Island (PUSH-LI). The group started off slow at first, but has taken off and now boasts more than 6,000 members. The group is comprised of young people who are in recovery, parents - many of whom have kids who are actively addicted and others who have lost children to overdoses, educators, school officials, clergy, elected officials and business leaders. In addition to exchanging information about local substance abuse treatment resources, prevention information and local events, the group provides mutual support to parents and kids who are struggling with addiction. This group continues to grow on a daily basis, has received local media coverage and members are planning their first offline meeting on May 12, 2010.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  Because this initiative is new and grew organically, a formal evaluation has not yet been conducted. To date the Facebook group has 6,200 members, averages about 65 posts per day, has connected 120 families to our support services and 28 kids to treatment. The first in-person meeting of the group is set for May 12, 2010 and we expect more than 100 members to attend.

Conclusions:  Facebook and other social marketing tools offer exciting possibilities and the unparalled potential to communicate with large numbers of consumers with almost no out-of-pocket expense.

Implications for research and/or practice: Few organizations are using Facebook to for health promotion and disease prevention activities. With 400 million registered Facebook users, this represents a missed opportunity, particularly as it relates to young people. Our experience and success in using Facebook can be replicated in communities across the United States for any number of prevention messages.