Leveraging Communication Platforms, Amplifying Reach, and Expanding Research Opportunities Around Heroin

Background: Heroin use has increased sharply across the United States among men and women, most age groups, and all income levels. Some of the greatest increases occurred in demographic groups with historically low rates of heroin use: women, the privately insured, and people with higher incomes.

Program background: Leveraging several different communications platforms (fact sheets, MMWR, press release, media advisory, telebriefings, partner letters, social media, Town Hall, Google Ads, podcasts, and others) helped to strengthen key messages and public engagement specific to heroin content. DUIP participated in its fifth drug overdose-related Vital Signs release, a successful communication vehicle for reaching the public with important information about this emerging health threat. In conjunction with the 2015 Vital Signs release, DUIP utilized additional platforms to increase awareness and amplify reach. Those included a twitter chat, Medscape Commentary with Dr. Frieden, CDC Clinician Outreach and Communication Activity (COCA) call with CE credit, and updated web content.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  DUIP used web and social media analytics to measure content performance and analyze key metrics data, to effectively optimize content. Within the first week of release, there were over 100 partner letters, 1,500 news stories, and 3,200 social media mentions, reaching over 2.5 billion people. Within 30-days reports showed:  

• 1,732 news articles: Potential reach nearly 2.7 million
• $4.9 million in advertising equivalent media coverage
• Web traffic to the Vital Signs websites: 61,052
• 2,472 posts on multiple social media networks: Potential reach nearly 44.2 million
• Twitter chat (#HeroinChat): Potential reach of 53.7 million
• Google Ads: 4 million impressions
• Medscape Commentary: Reach 40.4 million
• 400 audio lines and 226 webinar lines accessed during the COCA call “The Role of Clinicians in Addressing the Opioid Overdose Epidemic”

Conclusions: CDC Vital Signs was a successful communication vehicle for DUIP to communicate the increasing risk of heroin use in our nation. The CDC Vital Signs program is a trusted source for public health information and served as a catalyst for the use of well-established communications mechanisms that enhanced message reach. DUIP’s heroin communication efforts leveraged multiple platforms and can serve as model for increasing awareness of public health threats for the American public in a relatively condensed period of time.

Implications for research and/or practice: The increasing awareness and urgency of the heroin problem in our nation have led to programmatic and strategic changes. The CDC Vital Signs and MMWR on heroin use in the U.S. was among DUIP’s first publications on this topic, expanding our expertise and research from prescription opioids to illegal opioids. DUIP has expanded the drug overdose website to include all opioids, creating new pages for heroin information and resources, and new extractions of heroin-related data and trends. DUIP also continues working to scale-up state prevention activities, while expanding in the area of heroin surveillance with the $5.6 million for illicit opioid use risk factors, as outlined in the FY 2016 President’s Budget.