Disseminating Key Findings of the 50th Anniversary Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health through Strategic Partnerships

Background:  In January 2014, “The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General” (SGR50) was released. Strategic partnerships played a vital role in how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) disseminated the report’s evidence-based information to educate public health professionals and the public about new findings impacting chronic diseases.

Program background:  CDC developed an integrated partnership strategy to disseminate key findings from SGR50. This presentation will share the processes used to identify and engage partners, the resources created to convey report information and key messages, and the strategies used to promote relevant and actionable content to partners through conventional and social media. CDC will also share specific examples of outcomes from the efforts. CDC created communication materials and resources that included an executive summary, facts sheets, and a plain language consumer guide, designed to ensure varied audiences received and understood the SGR50’s new information. CDC also created press materials, infographics, key messages, and resources for earned and social media use by CDC and its partners.  Partners included grantees and national organizations working in tobacco use prevention and control, as well as new, non-traditional partner organizations focusing on chronic diseases and disabilities identified in SGR50. Communications sharing SGR50 information were tailored to ensure relevance to each organization’s focus. 

Evaluation Methods and Results:  CDC shared SGR50 materials and resources with 500+ grantees and partner organizations surrounding the launch. We asked them to disseminate this information, incorporate it into their communications, and provide outcomes of their efforts. To evaluate these efforts, we used process measures, such as the number of each type of material distributed for use, and the number of each type of communication we initiated. We used outcome measures to assess how partners used the materials, such as the number of media materials written and published, information shared in presentations and communications, the number of social media posts, downloads of campaign resources, and distribution of these materials. We collected information partners reported to us and analyzed online downloads.   In the first week surrounding the release, we shared 2 email blasts, 25+ new materials, 26 Tweets (excluding live press conference tweets), and 11 Facebook posts. The SGR50 webpages had 25,000+ unique visitors, 65,000+ total visits, and 3,700+ views of the public service announcement. Examples of materials downloaded included the full report (4,000), Executive Summary (5,000) and Consumer Guide (1,500). Additional and updated metrics will be shared during the presentation.  

Conclusions:  Strategic partnerships can be extremely valuable in extending information to key audiences to raise awareness and educate them and their constituents about research findings. The efforts used to disseminate SGR50 information demonstrate how creative strategic partnerships can effectively facilitate the information sharing to advance public health.

Implications for research and/or practice:  It is important to identify and reach out to partners who have direct or indirect interest in your issue, and to frame your information and partnership requests according to how your information will assist them.  Ensure the content shared is actionable, relevant and useful as a tool for partner communication and education efforts.