NIH Gulf Study: Communication and Outreach Efforts Targeting a Diverse Population of Oil Spill Clean-Up Workers and Volunteers

Background: Over 150,000 individuals participated in the clean-up of the largest oil spill in U.S. history caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. As part of the Federal response to the spill, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the GuLF STUDY to examine potential mental and physical health impacts of exposure to oil and dispersants among clean-up workers and volunteers.

Program background: Contact information for the clean-up responders was limited and often unreliable, hindering attempts to reach potential participants directly. The study population was highly diverse – comprised of persons from  urban and rural areas in the five Gulf Coast states, including numerous occupations involving   those most impacted by the spill (such as boat captains, fishermen, hotel workers, and oil rig workers) and representing wide-ranging cultural and ethnic backgrounds (including at least three primary languages).  Additionally, many living in the Gulf Coast region were still recovering from recent natural disasters and the region represents one of the most economically-disadvantaged and medically-underserved populations in the United States.   

A comprehensive communications and community outreach plan targeted to the unique attributes of the population was launched to increase awareness of the study and recruit clean-up responders where they live, work, play, and pray.  Communications efforts included a regional earned and paid media campaign of print, broadcast (radio and TV), outdoor, and social media with celebrity spokespeople.  A “grass-tops” community outreach effort included partnerships with local leaders in public health, health care, seafood and fishing industries, and mission-based community organizations.

Evaluation Methods and Results: By March 2013, nearly 33,000 workers and volunteers were recruited into the study making it the largest study on the effects of oil spills ever conducted.  During campaign implementation, we monitored traditional indicators of campaign effectiveness such as media impressions, web site and social media hits, and the number of calls into the study hotline by campaign element.  We also developed less traditional indicators such as enrollment rates by language, occupation, and geographic location as well as the ratio of individuals recruited into the study through inbound calls (those who had seen study messages) as opposed to outbound calls (those contacted directly from the study call center) to target future efforts. Results indicated short-term effects for individual campaign elements (such as a one-day Satellite Media Tour) and a cumulative, long term effect of the campaign and community outreach efforts over time.  Additionally, one campaign strategy – a large scale direct postcard mailing – was shown to have one of the strongest effects on recruitment rates.     

Conclusions: This research demonstrates that while short-term effects can be apparent for single campaign elements, these effects are not sustainable.  Nonetheless, a combination of media-driven and community engagement strategies, when implemented over time, can significantly impact study recruitment efforts – even in a target population as diverse as that in the Gulf region.   

Implications for research and/or practice: This campaign has implications for future communications efforts that rely on single, often high-cost, campaign elements with limited sustainability. For longer-term communications, we highlight the importance of using multiple strategies and community involvement to sustain efforts.