Using a Novel-Liaison Based Social Media Intervention Utilizing Community Feedback to Improve Organizational Health Literacy in Covid-19 Crisis Communication

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed historical pervasive gaps in information and resources for vulnerable communities. In an academic community partnered response of a consortium of already collaborating community and academic partners, the COVID Care Corps (CCC), was developed to create and disseminate public health information to individuals in the Inland Empire (IE) by including community liaisons to implement a systematic feedback loop to assure community voice. Liaisons made disseminating information and getting community feedback more efficiently in a time of crisis when information needed to be immediate. As a result, it was found that although community was concerned about the pandemic, they also wanted information about other social determinants of health (immigration, finances, housing and job security= often presented as competing priorities to the pandemic. This resulted in a shift in content creation to aligned with community needs and interests. Establishing trust through community relationships and identifying community liaisons should be implemented prior to a crisis to ensure the quick dissemination of information needed for local buy-in and true equitable health communication.