When we designed this campaign, we thought that a key success factor would be our ability to partner with large employers to conduct workplace testing and vaccinations. Large employers, our thinking went, have lots of employees and a communication infrastructure. They also care about the health of their employees and would welcome the opportunity to educate and vaccinate. Executives of large employers can be great evangelists and could help us outreach to other large employers. Employees of large employers usually have healthcare and a medical home for follow-up care.
I talked to several HR managers from large employers about partnering with Jade Ribbon Arizona to conduct an education campaign, mass-vaccination, and targeted testing campaign at their site. I expected concerns and was ready to address them. I was instead met with firm resistance.
They stated a concern about EEOC and protected classes (race and national origin) because of our campaign focus on Asians and Pacific Islanders.
They stated concerns about discrimination because of a stigma attached to Hepatitis B virus. I asked what the stigma was. They responded that they were concerned that there was a stigma that linked Hepatitis B virus with risky behavior.
They stated concerns about the blood draws (testing) and needle sticks (vaccinations) and about employee privacy.
I was prepared to address each of their concerns, but the resistance remains firm. Please help me rethink this.
Is there an immediate concern within our community about the risk posed by hepatitis B virus?
What are the community’s immediate concerns and can these be broadened/linked to hepatitis B virus?
Does the community understand and are they aware of how hepatitis B virus affects them?
Motivation
Does motivation exist in our community to increase testing and vaccination for hepatitis B virus?
Is there an interest to work together on this issue?
Small Geographic Area
Is the focus for our efforts within a defined and manageable geographic area?
Do the people we need to reach identity themselves as belonging to the same community?
Flexibility and Adaptability
Are community members open to change?
Do community norms, language, and culture place rigid restrictions on problem solving and task accomplishment?
Preexisting Social Cohesion
Is there a stable population of people to work with?
What groups are not well connected?
What are the commonly held values?
Ability to Discuss, Reach Consensus, and Cooperate
Does this community have a history of working together to solve problems or help people?
Another technology test as we learn how to create YouTube videos and to embed them onto our website.
Please help us spread the word that there is a test, there is a vaccine, and there treatment. Encourage your friends to Get Tested! If you want to put this video on your website or MySpace page use this code and please share this YouTube video. Thank you very much for reading.
This video will provide you with an overview of the Jade Ribbon Arizona campaign. It is about 21 minutes long (and is the second take - as the first one had sound issues).
Please remember that there is a test, there is a vaccine, and there is treatment. Get Tested! Thank you very much for reading.
I like PBwiki, but in the end I switched over to MediaWiki. Part of it is a preference to hosting the wiki on my own servers (PBwiki is hosted on their servers) and part of it is the fact that I think we should all learn how to edit wikis the old school way and participate in editing Wikipedia (MediaWiki software is the same used by Wikipedia). Here is a link to the MediaWiki user’s guide learn how to edit then head to the Jade Ribbon Arizona Wiki and contribute.
The forum is also live. For the forum I decided to use bbPress instead of phpBB. I love WordPress and decided to give their forum software a try. You may find the forum here: http://forum.jaderibbon.net.
I got some good suggestions for Project Management software, but in the end chose a self-hosted solution instead. You may find that site here: http://project.jaderibbon.net/ (login “Guest” | password “Guest”).
Now it gets fun…
(since you asked, yes, we are on MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/jaderibbonaz)
There is a test, there is a vaccine, and there is treatment. Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend and Get Tested!
P.S. Testing our mad podcasting skillz. This is just a test. We will be sure to notify you when the podcast goes live.
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