Beginning a Public Health Campaign

Health Communications: Minority Youth Substance Abuse Solutions
Introduction: Why a Public Health Campaign is Needed
The rise of the opioid epidemic in America has been well documented by researchers (Nelson, Juurlink & Perrone, 2015; Manchikanti et al., 2012). As millions of youths are at risk of succumbing to substance abuse via street drugs and opioids, the need for a public health campaign is evident (Murthy, 2016). The issue of reducing the spread of substance abuse among minority youths is particularly important because a high percentage of those who become addicted to or substance abusers is found in minority populations and particularly high among Asian Americans (Winter, 2016). In order to prevent the spread of substance abuse among minority youth, a public health campaign should be developed and implemented.
A Key Element of Health Communication
A key element of health communication that is essential for a public health leader dealing with this particular issue and this particular population is to have an adequate mode of communication. Another tool, however, is the ability to monitor the effectiveness of the campaign: that means it must be possible to obtain feedback using data collection instruments such as surveys to see how well the message is getting out and how well it is leading to the kind of results that are desired. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and one of the key elements of health communication recommended by Smit-Kroner and Brumby (2015) is the use of health information to raise or increase the population’s health literacy—i.e., the community’s understanding of the issue, the risks associated with substance abuse in this case and the ways to prevent the spread of substance abuse among the minority youth population. Increasing knowledge is a crucial part of the health communication campaign.
The first step to developing an effective public health campaign is to research the problem and collect as much data on the issue as possible. Once that data is collected, an effective intervention must be developed that can be used to mitigate the risks associated with this particular public health issue. That intervention has to be implemented at the local level particularly in areas where the population is most at risk. Communities where minority youth are most likely to be exposed to the temptation of abusing substances have to be identified as targets for the public health campaign. Then the campaign itself has to be designed in such a way that the maximum amount of people is reached and the maximum amount of lives positively impacted.
One way to reach the maximum number of people today is to use a social media public health campaign. Social media is the most-used tool among youths today and it is the overwhelmingly preferred method of communication among digital natives (youths born since 1980). Any marketing campaign manager will observe how essential it is to have a presence on social media in order to interact with customers and build a base of core consumers and followers. Velasquez and LaRose (2015) note that there is even a majorly significant “relationship between social media use and youth’s political participation” (p. 900), which suggests that one way to activate and incentivize minority youth to partake in a public health campaign is to activate them through their preferred media of choice—social media. This idea must be applied for a public health campaign because it enables the message to be taken up en masse by the target population and easily communicated to others.
The message has to be one that can be easily expressed via social media, however. This information must include brief facts, reminders, and stories to share. It should include information about public meetings that will be held to provide information and ways to prevent the outbreak of substance abuse among minority youth. The public health campaign should be seen as a way to empower youths and to make them feel that they are taking ownership of the problem rather than being treated as victims who are passively being treated. Today’s youths are motivated to take action, as a slew of action-oriented youth movements have shown, from Black Lives Matter to various others. The minority youth of today are socially activated via social media, and this is the primary tool that a public health campaign must incorporate into the design for raising health literacy and preventing the spread of substance abuse.
One Challenge
One challenge to developing this public health campaign is how to manage the scope of the problem. This is a nationwide problem that really has to be addressed locally at each and every community involved. That means there needs to be national-level organization with a hands-on, localized grassroots level of involvement, utilizing volunteers and grant money to maintain an effective implementation. The message has to be designed to appeal to the target population and activity workshops have to be conducted so that the population is able to become informed and activated enough to spread the message among their friends, in their schools and on the streets. Today’s powerful social justice movement shows that youths are ready to take ownership of the future—and combating substance abuse falls right in line with their core values. For that reason, the way to overcome the challenge of managing the scope of this problem is to focus on harnessing the power of the social justice movement and directing those participants to embracing and working for this public health campaign. The message to be delivered has to focus on how stopping the scourge of the opioid epidemce depends on them—the minority youth—taking action and holding each other accountable. It has to be more than a “just say no” message: it has to be a message in which the youths are informed, touched by their own daily experiences, and made aware that they can do something to turn this problem around. Using the power of social media to manage the scope of this problem and raise local support that can generate the kind of grassroots assistance required is exactly the way to overcome this challenge.
References
Nelson, L. S., Juurlink, D. N., & Perrone, J. (2015). Addressing the opioid epidemic.  Jama, 314(14), 1453-1454.
Manchikanti, L., Fellows, B., Janata, J. W., Pampati, V., Grider, J. S., & Boswell, M. V. (2012). Opioid epidemic in the United States. Pain Physician, 15(3 Suppl), ES9-38.
Murthy, V. H. (2016). Ending the opioid epidemic—a call to action. New England Journal of Medicine, 375(25), 2413-2415.
Smit-Kroner, C. & Brumby, S. (2015). Farmers sun exposure, skin protection, and public health campaigns: An Australian Perspective. Preventive Medicine Reports 2, 602-607.
Velasquez, A., & LaRose, R. (2015). Youth collective activism through social media: The role of collective efficacy. New Media & Society, 17(6), 899-918.
Winter, T. (2016). Addiction among different races. Retrieved from https://sunrisehouse.com/addiction-demographics/different-races/