Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

A Digital-First Approach to Public Health

Award Winner

Overview

In the United States, injury is the leading cause of death for children and adults between the ages of 1 and 45. Injuries and violence affect everyone—regardless of age, race, or economic status. The Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (CDC NCIPC) works to understand exactly how injury and violence impact all of us and what we can do to prevent it.  For three years, the Hatcher Group, in partnership with Weber Shandwick/Powell Tate, helped NCIPC meet its communications goals by delivering powerful messages and products.

Challenge

NCIPC needed to communicate complex, sensitive public health issues with a wide range of audiences in a clear, consistent, and timely manner. They also wanted to go beyond and approach their work with a “digital-first” mindset. Hatcher helped NCIPC meet this challenge by creating user-friendly website content and design, promoting NCIPC resources, and performing usability testing.

Solution

Our focus on digital-first communications was crucial to reaching and engaging NCIPC’s diverse set of audiences. We worked with the NCIPC team to develop a more dynamic website and provide more accessible and understandable content where people are looking for it, with a particular emphasis on mobile and tablet users. Our focus on storytelling humanized the Injury Center’s priority issue areas and made them personal, knowing audiences are most likely to engage with content they connect with emotionally.

Specifically, we supported NCIPC’s rapid response field teams; developed and implemented a digital-first strategy; provided design and testing for NCIPC’s Technical Assistance clearinghouse; and supported messaging and product development for the Injury Center’s priority focus areas, including suicide prevention, opioid use disorder, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

Impact

  • Elevated NCIPC’s web presence with a digital-first engagement strategy for optimal user experience.
  • Increased the online visibility of NCIPC priority topics, including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), opioid overdose prevention, and suicide prevention.
  • Promoted NCIPC resources at public health conferences to reach key audiences.

Capabilities

Animation
Behavior change
Content
Data visualization
Digital products
Equitable outreach
SEO
Social media
Visual (video and photo)
Website: design and UX

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