Using Social Media to Break Down Communications Barriers Between State and Local Agencies

Background:  Effective and efficient communication between state and local health departments is a common dilemma. In North Carolina, the Statewide Health Promotion Program (SHP) provides funding to 83 local health departments and districts to support programs promoting policy and environmental changes for increased physical activity, healthy eating and tobacco cessation. The SHP team consists of three staff members who are each assigned one-third of the local health departments to provide technical assistance and oversight. This team requested assistance in identifying new and more effective ways to interact with their counties while encouraging collaboration between local coordinators.

Program background:  In October of 2009, NC launched a pilot project to test the use of Facebook as a vehicle to not only aide in state and local communication but to also increase collaboration between local Health Promotion Coordinators. Facebook was selected as the channel for this pilot based on the number of people already utilizing it as well as its functionality for discussions, links, multi-media, as well as data insights for the page administrators. After gaining approval from the local health directors, county level health promotion coordinators were invited to participate in the pilot. Thirty-three counties volunteered. Participation included both rural and metropolitan counties, from mountains to coast -- a true representation of NC’s demographic and geographic makeup.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  The goals of the pilot were to:

1. Increase collaboration amongst local health departments health promotion staff
2. Reduce “reinvention” and overlap of tools and resources
3. Provide regular updates of state-level information that is accessible to the counties at all times
4. Drive health professionals to the Eat Smart, Move More NC website and all of its resources

The initial role of the Healthy Weight Communications Unit (HWCU) included providing counties with needed documentation to allow access to Facebook through their health departments, technical assistance in developing an official county health department presence on Facebook, and webinar training on how to use Facebook. After the initial start-up phase of the pilot, the HWCU served as the administrator of the Facebook page by encouraging participation by posting links, resources and discussion starters on a weekly basis. Postings by local staff were monitored for frequency and content.

Conclusions:  Even though only 36 percent of pilot participants posted comments or links on the Facebook page, preliminary results of a post-pilot survey and focus group revealed that 93 percent of pilot participants thought the Facebook page was useful. Respondents reported using the page on a regular basis as a way to keep informed as well as to help them come up with ideas to implement in their counties. Ninety-three percent reported that they thought it had been a good outlet to connect with other local health departments and 85% thought it had been a good outlet to connect with the SHP team. Other results and evidence based strategies will be shared during the presentation.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Using lessons learned from this pilot, gives new insight into effective strategies for communicating with partners.