Public health campaigns and social marketing strategies: An academic-practice partnership

Shared responsibilities between academia and practice enhances the successful creation of public health campaigns.  This poster describes the benefits of academic-practice partnerships in the development, implementation and evaluation of public health campaigns.  Graduate public health students in a summer service-learning course worked with employees in a local health department to create public health campaigns that addressed specific priorities of the local health department.  In partnership with the health department, students followed a series of step-by-step worksheets to guide the creation of the campaign, identified primary and secondary audiences, conducted a SWOT analysis to examine the situation, and established a logic model to illustrate the effects of launching the campaign.  Working together, they created a timeline and budget for completion of the campaigns, which included several channels and tools and an evaluation plan to measure success.  As a result of this collaboration, the health department is now using social media, and campaigns were created to promote the local health department’s immunization program, substance abuse and outreach services, educational programs regarding pool safety, and other priorities. The components of this service-learning course can be replicated by other academic programs that work closely with health departments in their communities.