Flint, Michigan: Handeling a Communications Crisis

Background:  Health officials in Flint, Michigan, are still trying to minimize the effects of lead exposure to the city of nearly 100,000 people, which began when the city started drawing drinking water from the Flint River. Among those most impacted by the crisis are the city’s approximately 3,600 children ages 0-3, who are potentially at risk of lead-related developmental delays. In 2016, the Genesee Intermediate School District (GISD) and its Early On® Genesee program teamed with Güd Marketing to develop a public education campaign to spur parents and caregivers of the at-risk infants and toddlers to schedule a free assessment. Once a child is evaluated, Early On professionals work with the family to develop a plan of action and provide any needed intervention services.

Program background:  Interviews with GISD staff, civic leaders and members of the faith community provided key insights into our target audience and the barriers that deter parents and caregivers from requesting Early On services. One challenge was the high level of distrust toward state government officials and organizations among Flint residents. We worked strategically with local groups and leaders to recruit key supporters to inspire trust among those unfamiliar with the Early On program. The “Don’t Wait. Evaluate” campaign was developed to encourage action by parents, rather than paralyze them with fear of the unknown. The campaign reached the people of Flint via paid static and mobile billboards, bus cards, TV ads, digital ads, social media, content marketing articles and more. Awareness was also generated through earned news media coverage, low-budget print pieces for distribution at local events and an existing network of grassroots messengers. Periodic news conferences and media outreach to ensure regular updates and consistent messaging have also proved important. We continue to grow grassroots partners, most recently working with the local pediatricians association to produce a Q&A for doctors and with the local PBS station to stress the importance of summer learning activities for Flint preschoolers. We also coordinated with Flint-area Hispanic leaders and media to reach the 4,000 Latinos in Flint, including an estimated 1,000 undocumented residents.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  The campaign was evaluated in three ways: number of parents and caregivers seeking evaluations, media metrics and additional program funding.

• Evaluations: In six months, evaluation requests increased by 42% in target area.
• Media Metrics: Over 1.2 million impressions generated by content marketing articles with an average read time of 2.5 minutes. On Facebook, reached the highest possible relevancy score of 10/10, reached 17,636 people and 1,131 engagements. Video content had over 146,000 views.
• GISD received additional funding to expand the Early On program.

Conclusions:  This crisis is ongoing, and early intervention is key when children are experiencing developmental delays. Our aim is to continue to drive awareness of the availability of free evaluations until every child is evaluated.

Implications for research and/or practice: 

• Important to not have messaging too clinical and thus ineffective at reaching an overwhelmingly impoverished audience.
• Where there is great distrust of government officials and organizations, key to identify and recruit trusted partners to help promote awareness.