Resiliency is the only response.

Background.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation threatened public health efforts and created widespread fear and confusion. The Resiliency Campaign emerged as a strategic nationwide initiative designed to combat these challenges, leveraging innovative peer modeling approaches to reach diverse communities and restore trust in critical health information.

Challenge.

When COVID-19 hit, misinformation spread rapidly, creating significant barriers to public health communication. Diverse populations, including conservative Caucasians, BIPOC communities, and undocumented individuals, were particularly vulnerable to conflicting narratives about vaccines and pandemic safety.

The campaign faced multiple complex challenges: developing a communication strategy that could resonate across different demographic groups, overcome deep-seated mistrust, and provide a scalable framework for public health leaders nationwide. With each targeted group having unique reasons for vaccine hesitancy, the Resiliency team needed a nuanced, adaptable approach.

Enter Dr. Alfred McAlister, a renowned expert in peer modeling who brought decades of public health expertise to our team. Having led groundbreaking initiatives like the North Karelia Project in Finland and the Texas Tobacco Prevention Pilot Initiative, Dr. McAlister’s proven track record in behavior change made him uniquely qualified to tackle COVID-19 misinformation. His deep understanding of behavioral sciences, cultivated through his education at the University of Texas and Stanford University, informed the development of a comprehensive strategy that went beyond traditional public health communication. Dr. McAlister helped create a flexible framework that could be adapted by local and state public health leaders while maintaining a consistent, evidence-based message.

A multi-channel approach was key to the campaign’s success. The team developed a dedicated website that served as an information hub, offering accurate COVID-19 information, personal stories, and direct connections to subject matter experts. Strategic ad campaigns were launched across social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, ensuring broad demographic reach.

By leveraging behavioral journalism and psychology, the campaign aimed to do more than simply inform, it sought to motivate and engage. Live virtual events, targeted social media content, and personalized messaging allowed the campaign to break through existing information barriers.

Campaign.

After several meetings with some of the world’s top public health leaders across the country, our team created a campaign fashioned after Dr. Alfred McAlister’s peer modeling approach.

We made an in-depth process where we shared our methodology directly with public health leaders, communicators, and other government institutions. As a result, public health officials were also allowed to submit proposals and receive funding for their projects and campaign. This led to multiple states allocating money for their public health safety projects.

Our team also developed a website that targeted public health officials and the general public. It provided stories and accurate information about COVID-19 and the vaccines. Also, it created a place where people could participate in the campaign by offering them an opportunity to speak with a subject matter expert. Finally, visitors could get information on how to bring awareness to their community.

We also leveraged social media by running campaign ads on different channels, such as TikTok and Instagram, and in various formats for a more extensive demographic reach.

Results.

The Resiliency project’s impact was profound and far-reaching:

• Reached nearly half of the American population, with 30 million people engaged in Texas alone
• Successfully connected with targeted audiences across California, Georgia, New York, Illinois, and beyond
• Developed a peer modeling solution so effective it was published in an academic paper
• Created a foundational framework quickly adopted throughout the United States, especially in the Southern states

By prioritizing understanding of diverse demographics and creating a flexible, empathetic communication strategy, the Resiliency project demonstrated how innovative approaches can transform public health messaging during crisis periods.

FIVE

The achievements of the Resiliency campaign mainly depended on understanding the targeted demographics.

We worked with multiple public health leaders and were given information regarding their audience. After our detailed research, we knew our targets included conservative Caucasians, undocumented civilians, and multiple BIPOC groups.

We found that these groups were centered in less educated areas across the US and were more likely to consume misinformation regarding the vaccine due to language barriers, government distrust, political values, or lack of access to resources. In response, our team had to ensure that our campaign included content that would best connect to each specific group.

And in order to know that our information would be delivered directly to their areas, online and offline, we set up ads running on multiple social channels and broadcasting television. Because of this, we were able to see the real-life impact on our audience as they continued to see these ads.

ONE

After targeting social channels and platforms that would help serve the campaign, the next step in our approach was to make a hyper-targeted campaign solution. When meeting with public health leaders, we noticed that while they knew the importance of communication to reach their audience, the problem involved effectively motivating and educating them on a state and local level.

Our job was to give recommendations on how to solve misinformation concerning the coronavirus and beyond. We then started our work to deliver an overarching campaign that helped serve as a marketing structure for public health leaders to use in their future campaigns. This is where our peer modeling framework came in.

Fashioned after our work with UT Health Science Center and UTHealth School of Public Health, we partnered again with Dr. Alfred McAlister. Our team operated alongside his peer modeling approach, using behavioral journalism and psychology to encourage and motivate our targeted audience.

We made this our foundation and began working with public health leaders, government officials, and other institutions who would be spearheading their own public health campaigns. And after identifying our demographics and releasing the models that would work with each campaign, we were then able to accurately measure the data coming in from the clinics and contact tracing.

TWO

Thanks to Dr. McAlister’s acclaimed peer-modeled approach and our 5-1-2 framework, the entire campaign reached close to 150 million people across the US, proving again how practical the peer modeling structure is for public health campaigns.

The campaign’s launch and success were ultimately accelerated due to our knowledge of social media and how it can affect the public.

We saw how false information that came from Russia mixed with conservative messages in America. This led to scaremongering within the community while fostering myths and half-truths about the COVID-19 vaccines.

Our team met this disinformation and dived right in. We worked to get in front of the lies and created the foundational structure that could be used for all future public health campaigns nationwide.