The New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) had recently completed a major public health initiative on preventing and managing chronic disease. Working with partners throughout the state, the department developed the New Jersey Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Plan: Partnering for a Healthy New Jersey.
The Plan identified the scope of the problems caused by chronic disease and the impact it was having on both the state and its citizens. The challenge was how to reach people with public health messaging to improve outcomes.
We joined this project through our client, The Southern New Jersey Perinatal Cooperative (SNJPC), and developed a plan to help the state build a messaging platform for communication. We started by developing a universal set of definitions for health terminology for the partners to use. The project continued with the creation of a social media plan for the public. It became clear through the work that health practitioners were the most trusted distributors of information, so we developed a plan to provide them with sharable content for their patients.
To help the NJDOH gather and share stories we developed a tactical guide to assist in interviewing, getting great pictures and securing permission.