Mobilizing Social Media Influencers for COVID-19 Prevention, Care, and Coping

Project Description Narrative:

COVID-19 is a public health threat throughout Wisconsin, with the greatest number of cases in Milwaukee County. Preventing COVID-19 requires population-level adherence to public health steps to contain transmission. Sustaining steps that require change in everyday social and activity patterns may be particularly difficult for young people who perceive lower personal threat, and older adults in disadvantaged communities. Prior research has shown that personally-known and trusted popular opinion leaders within social networks— friends, neighbors, and other network members—can be engaged as effective health behavior change advocates to their peers.

This project will rapidly implement a social media intervention to identify, recruit, and engage community volunteers to disseminate and endorse messages that increase COVID-19 prevention, stigma-reduction, and coping steps to others in their networks.