Applying Community Engagement Strategies to Health Policy Communication

Background: In Pierce County, WA the use of vapor products among youth is rapidly increasing and causing concern for public health. There is minimal regulation around sales, promotion, access, school discipline, labeling etc. In 2015, our Board of Health pursued local action. Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department is committed to community engagement and is continuously developing the best methods to incorporate it into our daily practice both internally and with our partners and community. When beginning to implement plan processes and strategies, we commit to community engagement. Our approach combines communication, community engagement and community mobilization strategies. We use the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation as a guiding tool.

Program background: With a goal of reducing youth access to vapor products and protecting the general public from exposure to second-hand vapor, we developed a team to identify appropriate policy strategies. Tasks included:

• Adapting an existing media campaign to create awareness and initiate dialogue using a variety of media outlets and expanding our social media skills.
• Creating a SharePoint site and project management tracking tool, which included identifying key staff and assigning roles and responsibilities, and developing internal communication strategies.
• Planning and implementing a communication plan that included the media campaign, a robust community engagement plan to learn from community sectors that are impacted by vapor products and who would be affected by regulation and move as far along the spectrum as possible.
• Working closely with our Communications Director on implementation and earned media opportunities.

Evaluation Methods and Results: We used a variety of methods to evaluate our efforts including:

• Developing and analyzing a series of community surveys with support from our internal Office of Assessment and Planning.
• Contracting with a skilled facilitator to lead and summarize key findings of focus groups.
• Identifying themes from community engagement activities and reporting to Board of Health.

The evaluation results were mostly qualitative data. We found both support and opposition to our goals and ideas for how to best meet our initiatives. We adapted the regulations to meet the concerns of the community sectors, particularly those most affected by regulation, the retailers. The Board of Health passed the regulations in November 2015. The overall experience of incorporating community engagement strategies within a project communication plan helped inform the Department’s development of an organizational strategy.

Conclusions: Braiding community engagement and community mobilization strategies into the communication plan is an effective way to build a better policy and create supportive public will. However, it is time-consuming work that requires transparency, qualitative data analysis, and slows the process.

Implications for research and/or practice: It is beneficial to create and implement a system to effectively use community engagement to improve communication and policy development.