Get the Facts Campaign
The Get the Facts campaign was based on CDC guidance, offering facts about COVID-19 vaccines in a simple and memorable way that counters common misconceptions. These facts addressed cost, ingredients, side effects, eligibility and more.
The campaign includes a social media series, fact sheets, and audio and video PSAs for people who don’t read in the language that they speak or who rely on more oral tradition. All materials are pre-designed, pre-translated into 40+ languages, and customizable with an organization’s logo, URL and photo.
Starting with community priorities
MHI held listening sessions with its partners on the ground such as the International Rescue Committee, Migrant Clinicians Network, and others to understand:
Incorporating diverse perspectives
The CDC and public health departments are great sources of reliable information, but the nature of their reach means they often have to write for very general audiences. Using their work as a baseline, MHI incorporated diverse perspectives into Get the Facts materials.
The MHI team reviewed and analyzed guidelines and communications developed by the CDC and converted them into simple, memorable language that would be as easy as possible to translate, while framing the communication around the questions and concerns brought up in listening sessions.
MHI physician collaborators were essential to ensuring the content we produced was medically accurate and adhered to the most current guidelines
Designing for the moment
MHI’s materials were created with translation in mind. For example, materials were designed in English with significant white space to ensure they would accommodate languages that require more words to convey meaning, such as Hmong.
To address fast-changing guidelines, MHI created conversation guides to equip bilingual community leaders with the language they needed to advocate for vaccines in a way that honors immigrant and refugee perspectives. For example, conversation guides emphasized that COVID-19 would prevent someone from attending work or school, or providing for one’s family.
MHI also pre-translated “dots” that announced vaccine availability for certain ages in all 40 languages, so when the guidelines changed MHI could update the materials overnight.
Health education in 40 languages
MHI’s translation process goes above an beyond industry standards. Each translation is completed by a professional translator, profread by a second translator, and reviewed by a linguist. Then, we ask a member of the community to review the translation to make sure it is not only accurate, but culturally appropriate. The linguist makes the final call as to whether and how to incorporate feedback from our community reviewer.
We also customized formats for individual linguistic communities. For example, languages with a strong oral tradition, such as Mixteco, only had audio/video resources available. Other languages, like Rohingya and Afar, only had print materials available after a consultation with the MHI team. This ensured the requester knew to prioritize audio/video resources and only offer the print materials as a supplement.
Available languages
“Even though he was a fluent
–Health System
Arabic speaker, having the Arabic language materials increased his credibility.”
Customizable and scalable
MHI wanted anyone to be able to customize campaign materials, even if they didn’t have design software or a communications department. That’s why MHI created drag-and-drop templates in Google Slides. Anyone could easily remove the logo, replace it with their own, update the provided URL, or use a more culturally-affirming photo. If a person can use PowerPoint or Microsoft Word, they can use MHI’s templates. This allows organizations like the opportunity to do what is best for their local community.
