Community messaging and outreach by the city of Milwaukee health department during response to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic

The 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic response by local public health agencies (LPHAs) underscores the need for a cost-effective risk communication model that can be sustained throughout events that could potentially continue to unfold for several months. While many LPHAs have short-term communication methods to engage community stakeholders and policymakers during emergency incidents, planning at the local level seldom entails a detailed strategy on events of long duration or uncertainty in population health outcomes. The City of Milwaukee Health Department (MHD) employed an array of communication conduits, formats and partnerships during response to the H1N1 pandemic in the spring and fall of 2009. After documenting over 3200 probable and confirmed cases of infection during the spring and significant racial disparity in hospitalizations during the fall, the City of Milwaukee Health Department (MHD) sustained a multi-faceted and comprehensive communication campaign to engage various sectors and demographic within the non-profit, corporate and government community. This included leveraging social media, traditional broadcast and print paid advertising, community newspaper roundtables, sector specific summits, town hall meetings, weekly situational reports and routine media briefings and news releases. The risk communication strategy used by the MHD incorporated both private sector marketing expertise and regional collaboration. Successful implementation of this level of messaging and outreach required resource and partner pre-identification and cooperation across response disciplines. The rapid evolution of information receipt and exchange during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic provides valuable insight on future LPHA planning challenges around cost-effective risk communication messaging and outreach.