156826 Creating grassroots advocacy campaigns for child safety issues: A case study

Tuesday, November 6, 2007: 5:00 PM

Susan M. Connor, PhD , Injury Prevention Center, Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, Cleveland, OH
As public health and health care professionals work to enact or improve state laws that promote children's health and safety, the ability to craft meaningful campaigns that mobilize the public behind an issue are a key to swaying legislators. This presentation uses a grassroots advocacy campaign to improve Ohio's child passenger safety law as a case study in successfully rallying the public behind an issue and providing advocates with the tools they need to convince legislators that voters support a change. The case study focuses on the process of developing an advocacy campaign and can serve as a model for anyone who needs to gather public support for a child safety issue and influence legislators' perceptions of voter support. The presentation will focus on the steps to creating a grassroots advocacy campaign, including knowing your audience, finding out what people know (or think they know) about an issue, identifying and addressing barriers to the passage of legislation, ways to reframe issues from a negative to a positive tone, and how to build the support from the public and the media required to sway legislators. This advocacy how-to presentation is not specific to child passenger safety issues, but can apply to any effort to protect children's health and safety through legislative change.

Learning Objectives:
1. List the key steps in developing and launching a grassroots advocacy campaign. 2. Discuss the need for addressing barriers to change with logical, convincing arguments that avoid polarizing or confrontational language. 3. Identify ways to engage people and make them want to act.

Keywords: Legislative, Advocacy

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.