Project 460702

Over the past year British Columbians have faced numerous public health threats, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a deadly heat dome, and devastating floods. To manage and mitigate these threats, government and allied government agencies need to communicate quickly with communities. Social media platforms are powerful tools for these communications because they can be used to disseminate important information to large and diverse audiences. However, effective social media is not just about adopting these tools, but about adapting them to ensure that messages are received by the people who need them most. The overarching aim of this proposal is to build social media capacity in British Columbia to strengthen communications during public health emergencies. We aim to: 1) develop and deliver a series of workshops that address social media training needs identified by public health communicators; 2) bring together a group of public health communicators and stakeholders within the province to identify remaining knowledge gaps that are necessary to strengthen capacity; and 3) build a provincial communications Community of Practice that integrates the skills and resources of member organizations. Together, these aims will provide a set of tools to improve current and future social media communications during public health emergencies.