Engaging Remote Aboriginal Communities in COVID-19 Public Health Messaging via Crowdsourcing

Abstract

Health comunication is a critical component of pandemic mitigation, but mainstream prevention messaging often lacks social, cultural and linguistic relevance to vulnerable populations. This community case study presents a novel, highly participatory pandemic prevention communication campaign that engaged individuals in remote Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory of Australia directly in prevention messaging via crowdsourcing, and distributed videos to remote area post-codes via targeted Facebook advertising. Facebook metrics, administrative campaign data and national statistics are used to assess campaign reach and engagement. The case study discusses lessons learned from the campaign, including how seeking unscripted COVID-19 prevention video messaging can support community ownership of pandemic messaging, rapid content generation, and a high level of Facebook user engagement. It also discusses the effectiveness of targeting remote area post-codes via Facebook advertising both to reach the target audience, and to support quality improvement assessments to inform health communication decision-making in a low resource setting.

Public participation in decisions about measures to manage the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review

“…Crowdsourcing initiatives where information is developed by members of the target population are a good way to engage people with minority language or members of Aboriginal communities. 85 Post-code targeted Facebook advertising of these campaigns is a low-cost distribution strategy. Including support for implementing crowdsourcing campaign ideas can create longer-term engagement than one-time engagement strategies.…”

“… 85 To fully benefit from the creative contributions of crowdsourcing campaigns, future calls for responses to the COVID-19 pandemic could be formally incorporated into planning processes. 85 …”

“…84 Three initiatives used a crowdsourcing approach to engage the public and discussed the challenges and benefits of this method. Crowdsourcing ideas for how to address the concerns of, or communicate public health messages with, vulnerable, culturally and linguistically diverse or minority populations was seen to be costeffective, 85 and to ensure that public health messages are more salient and understandable for the target audience. Crowdsourcing initiatives where information is developed by members of the target population are a good way to engage people with minority language or members of Aboriginal communities.…”

“…Including support for implementing crowdsourcing campaign ideas can create longer-term engagement than one-time engagement strategies. 85 To fully benefit from the creative contributions of crowdsourcing campaigns, future calls for responses to the COVID-19 pandemic could be formally incorporated into planning processes. 85 Reports on several initiatives discussed representation and legitimacy either directly or indirectly.…”

“…85 To fully benefit from the creative contributions of crowdsourcing campaigns, future calls for responses to the COVID-19 pandemic could be formally incorporated into planning processes. 85 Reports on several initiatives discussed representation and legitimacy either directly or indirectly. Findings of several evaluations of the Citizens' Convention on Climate in France addressed the representativeness of the convention.…”