HLTH 6412 Week 11 Flu Clinic Communication Plan Example

Communication Plan: A Fall Influenza Vaccination Clinic Series in a Rural County, With Audience Matched to Message, Message to Route and Route to Timing, Each Link Written So a Reader Can Trace It Back

Student Name

Walden University

HLTH 6412: Health and Wellness Education Communication and Technology Strategies

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Communication Plan: A Fall Influenza Vaccination Clinic Series in a Rural County, With Audience Matched to Message, Message to Route and Route to Timing, Each Link Written So a Reader Can Trace It Back

The Program

A composite county health department in a rural county will hold eight walk-in influenza vaccination clinics this fall at its main office, two senior centers, a library and three churches. Vaccination is free with or without insurance. National recommendations call for routine annual influenza vaccination for everyone aged 6 months and older without contraindications, and they prefer a higher-dose, recombinant or adjuvanted vaccine for adults 65 and older (Grohskopf et al., 2024). The department will offer the preferred products to older adults at every site. This plan sets out who the communication is for, what it says, how it travels and when.

Decision 1: Audience

The plan names three audiences in priority order, because a plan for everyone reaches no one in particular.

Adults 65 and older. They are the group for whom the department stocks specific preferred vaccines, and many attend senior centers and churches where clinics will be held.

Adults with chronic conditions who are patients of the county's two primary care clinics. The clinics can reach them by name.

Parents of children aged 6 months through 17 years. Children are included in the recommendation, and parents make the decision.

Each audience has a reason in the program itself, which is the first link in the chain.

Decision 2: Message

The core message is the same for all three audiences and carries four facts: free, no appointment, the date and place nearest the reader and what to bring. Readers with less health literacy tend to have poorer outcomes (Berkman et al., 2011), so the message uses plain words and states one action. Materials will be checked with a standard tool for understandability and actionability before release, including whether the action is stated explicitly (Shoemaker et al., 2014).

Each audience gets one added line tied to its reason for being an audience:

- Older adults: "We have the flu shots recommended for people 65 and older."

- Adults with chronic conditions: "A flu shot is recommended every year, and you can get yours without a clinic appointment."

- Parents: "Children 6 months and older can get a flu shot at every clinic. Bring your child's shot record if you have it."

The message for each audience traces back to Decision 1: it answers the question that made that group a priority.

Decision 3: Route

Each audience gets the route most likely to reach it, not every route.

Older adults: printed flyers and in-person announcements at senior centers, church bulletins and the local radio station's community calendar. These routes reach people where the clinics will be held.

Adults with chronic conditions: text message reminders sent by the primary care clinics to their own patients, with the date and place of the nearest clinic. Reminders sent to a patient's or parent's phone have been shown to increase on-time return for vaccines in a pediatric setting (Kharbanda et al., 2011), and the clinics already hold consent to text these patients.

Parents: a one-page notice sent home through the school district, in English and Spanish, and a post on the district's parent messaging system.

The route for each audience traces back to Decision 2: it is the channel by which that audience's added line can arrive in the place and form they already use.

Decision 4: Timing

Messages are timed to the clinic calendar rather than to a single launch date.

- Two weeks before the first clinic: school notice and church bulletin announcements.

- One week before each clinic: radio community calendar entry and senior center announcement for that site.

- Three days before each clinic: text reminders from primary care clinics to patients living nearest that site.

- Day before each clinic: a second text to the same patients and a social media post.

Timing traces back to Decision 3: each route has its own lead time. A church bulletin is printed a week ahead; a text reminder works best close to the event.

Checking That the Decisions Still Agree

A plan built over several weeks can drift, so the four decisions are checked against each other.

One disagreement surfaced in drafting and was fixed: an early version sent parents the text reminders intended for clinic patients, a route the message for parents had never been written for.

Table 1

Traceability Check

Each row should read left to right without a gap; a "no" would show a decision that no longer serves the one before it.

Alternatives Considered

A single countywide mass mailing was considered and rejected. It would carry the same message to every household regardless of audience, cost more than the targeted routes and arrive at one time rather than before each clinic. Paid social media advertising was considered for parents but set aside in favor of the school district's messaging system, which parents already use and which costs nothing. A telephone hotline for questions was kept, with its number printed on every flyer and included in every text, because older adults in particular may prefer to ask a person.

The plan also considered holding all clinics at the health department office, which would simplify staffing. That option was rejected because it would place the clinics far from the senior centers and churches where the first audience already gathers, breaking the link between audience and route.

Measures

The department will record, at each clinic, how attendees heard about it, by asking one question at check-in, and the number vaccinated by age group. Those figures will show which routes worked for which audiences and guide next year's plan.

Limits

The plan cannot reach residents who do not attend senior centers, churches or school activities and are not patients of the county clinics. A short notice in the county newspaper and flyers at pharmacies and the post office are added as a low-cost catch-all, recognizing they reach people unevenly.

References

Berkman, N. D., Sheridan, S. L., Donahue, K. E., Halpern, D. J., & Crotty, K. (2011). Low health literacy and health outcomes: An updated systematic review. Annals of Internal Medicine, 155(2), 97-107. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-155-2-201107190-00005

Grohskopf, L. A., Ferdinands, J. M., Blanton, L. H., Broder, K. R., & Loehr, J. (2024). Prevention and control of seasonal influenza with vaccines: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, United States, 2024-25 influenza season. MMWR Recommendations and Reports, 73(5), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.rr7305a1

Kharbanda, E. O., Stockwell, M. S., Fox, H. W., Andres, R., Lara, M., & Rickert, V. I. (2011). Text message reminders to promote human papillomavirus vaccination. Vaccine, 29(14), 2537-2541. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.01.065

Shoemaker, S. J., Wolf, M. S., & Brach, C. (2014). Development of the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT): A new measure of understandability and actionability for print and audiovisual patient information. Patient Education and Counseling, 96(3), 395-403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2014.05.027