Seeking Out New Life Forms: A Tobacco Control Community Exchange That Revolutionizes the Sharing of Campaign Materials, Creating a Network of Empowered Tobacco Control Professionals

Background:  Today’s rapidly evolving media environment means any campaign must be customizable, scalable, and delivered to any device, anytime, anywhere. Keeping up with the pace of technology, however, is a daunting task. With the decline of budgets and reallocation of many tobacco control funds, the number of state and local public health departments in need of high-quality digital assets is growing rapidly.

Program background:  This presentation outlines how the FDA Center for Tobacco Products, working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other  partners, is developing an online platform that will share innovative, evidence-based digital products with the public health community.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  When completed, this online platform will enable the community to share and reuse digital products, including:

• Media campaign assets, such videos, widgets, apps, eCards, and images
• Science-based web content aimed at reducing and preventing tobacco use
• Data that can be easily extracted to create new products

FDA and CDC will produce a number of new products, including multiple mobile applications to raise awareness of the harms of tobacco use, encourage tobacco users to quit, and increase access to information about the Tobacco Control Act.

Conclusions: This digital platform enables HHS to extend the reach of a campaign’s digital assets, support resource-strapped state and local public health organizations and provide key tobacco prevention and control content to the intended audience anytime, anywhere.

Implications for research and/or practice:  By providing evidence-based campaign materials to a broad array of tobacco prevention and control stakeholders, this platform could revolutionize the reach and effectiveness of tobacco control efforts. Organizations gain free access to valuable content, media, and data resources that can be tailored to the needs of their communities. This will enable our tobacco control partners to reallocate staff resources from the development of content to other tobacco prevention and control efforts. By sharing digital products for tobacco prevention and control within the public health community, HHS will greatly extend reach and impact of their media campaigns. The platform also enables content to be updated and maintained in one place without the need to re-publish it across multiple channels. This platform will only be as successful as its community building effort. FDA, CDC and other federal agencies have already begun engaging partners throughout the public health community and these efforts will continue to ensure the platform is built to serve its intended audience. We envision that the project will benefit many partners, including: Federal partners within and outside the Department of Health and Human Services,

• State and local tobacco prevention and control departments,
• Non-profit and community organizations, and;
• National associations working to advance tobacco prevention and control.