What Works: Moving Your OSH Information to Action Utilizing Best Practices of Digital Media
About this course
This course focuses on optimizing communication strategies by discussing relevant and effective case studies that highlight the core elements of the communication continuum: reach-engagement-interventions and campaigns to move our audiences to action. Case Studies for dissemination and engagement will be selected from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Science Blogs, Google, Wikipedia, UK National Health Service, and the Center for Disease Control (CDC). In addition, case studies focusing on campaigns and interventions will be selected from several international entities (EU-OSHA, ISSA, Cochrane Libraries, EDC-Stockholm, and CDC) to illustrate techniques and highlight effective strategies of moving our information to action.
Price information
The price of the course consists of the course fee of EUR 500
and the day package of choice.
Day package I
This package includes:
- conference facilities and technical equipment
- course material
- coffees, lunches
- dinners and the social program on Tuesday.
We strongly encourage you to take part in the social program, as this is a vital part of the NIVA course experience. We believe in the power of networking (between people) and strive to create an inspiring possibility for that through the social program.
The total price of the course is EUR 950 (course fee EUR 500 + day package fee EUR 450).
Day package II
This package includes:
- conference facilities and technical equipment
- course material
- coffees and lunches.
Kindly note that the day package II does not include dinners nor the social program.
The total price of the course is EUR 700 (course fee EUR 500 + day package fee EUR 200).
Accommodation
26th – 28th of October 2020 at Hotel Hanaholmen, Espoo, Finland.
To book a room from the block kindly make the reservation directly to the hotel by email to reception@hanaholmen.fi using the booking code “NIVA” (available until 2.10.2020).
Single The room price for a single standard room is EUR 115/night (including breakfast, morning sauna and access to the pool) and the price for a double room EUR 134/night (including breakfast, morning sauna and access to the pool). room: 128 €/night (including breakfast).
The block reservation will be available until 2nd of October 2020.
Course objectives
- To provide strategies to increase the timely dissemination and potential impact of useful health information
- To highlight activities to leverage audience networks to facilitate information sharing
- To effectively expand reach strategies to include broader, more diverse and “hard-to-reach” audiences by the extensive use of Wikipedia, other digital compendia and search engine optimization.
- To consider which activities may better personalize and reinforce health messages that can be more easily tailored or targeted to particular audiences
- To discuss how better to facilitate interactive communication, connection and public engagement
- To provide examples of empowering people to make safer and healthier decisions
- To present an easy to use metric dashboard to monitor and understand the effectiveness of targeted outreach efforts.
General course fee information
The courses and workshops vary in price. Please note that the course fee does not cover meals or accommodation. The course fee and day-package fee are invoiced after the registration deadline. Travel arrangements Please refrain from booking any tickets until we have confirmed the course. The confirmation, which will be sent after the registration deadline, will include detailed information on the payment of the course fee and day-packages, as well as information on accommodation options and practical arrangements. Please note that you are not insured by NIVA.
Subject background
Getting useful and relevant information and research findings into the right hands to be used to improve the health of employers and workers is not an easy task. This is particularly true for research in occupational safety and health because being safe at work sometimes is not seen as high public health priority. In addition, technical language is often a stumbling block. The technical language of our organizations may not be the same as the general publics.
Before health and safety information and research findings can be used to make policy or change behavior, it must be translated, disseminated and our audiences must be properly engaged. Ideally a positive intervention to change behavior should include strategies for extending the reach of relevant information, moving our audiences to engage with the information and finally stimulating activities for action.
Efforts to spread an idea may have no effect or unintended effects due to failures in content development, lack of reach and most importantly the failure to convert an idea to audience engagement and action. Reach is not impact! Having a huge social media presence does not assure action by our target audiences. As public health practitioners and safety officials we love to share evidence–based findings, but we must constantly strive to understand and utilize effective and relevant communication strategies to move our target audiences beyond reach to engagement and action.
Communication specialists and their scientific counterparts can assist the knowledge translation process by utilizing the correct social media venues including social video, understanding Search Engine Optimization, and editing Wikipedia to extend the reach of a useful idea, highlight its significance, and convey both idea within a context appropriate for the target audience. Guidelines and peer-reviewed journals can be a helpful source of new ideas. But someone is still needed to put what’s in the journals into context (content management) and assure the suggested ideas reach their target and stimulate action. It is critical that our translation efforts are designed to alert social media strategists to what is important, work to get the story straight and see it in a broader context and then move the idea to action. Dissemination is not engagement and engagement is not action but they are key parts of the research translation spectrum to move our useful and relevant information into practice.