Award Received for Excellence in Public Health Marketing Campaign
September 10th, 2018 | news
CONCORD, NH/September 12, 2018 – Earlier this week, the New Hampshire youth binge-drinking prevention campaign, “Binge-Free 603: What’s Your Reason?”, won the Gold Berreth Award, sponsored by the National Public Health Information Coalition (NPHIC), in the Not-for-Profit Health Marketing category. The award was presented to JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc., which created the campaign in partnership with the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Services (BDAS). The award was received at the ceremony on September 10th, held annually during the National Conference on Health Communications, Marketing, and Media in Atlanta, Georgia.
The “Binge-Free 603” campaign is an ongoing public health initiative aimed at lowering the high rates of young adult binge-drinking across the state. The campaign messaging focuses on the inspiring reasons many NH young adults choose to be binge-free, such as responsibility for their friends and family, doing well in school, and working hard to succeed at their jobs.
“We work in close partnership with BDAS on a variety of efforts to improve awareness, prevention, treatment, and recovery for substance use disorders and substance misuse in New Hampshire”, said Karyn Madore, Project Director. “The Binge-Free 603 campaign had tremendous engagement from New Hampshire young adults. Preventing binge drinking is key to reducing the unintended consequences and poor health outcomes that are connected to excessive alcohol consumption.”
Young adulthood is a time in life when risky binge drinking behaviors often occur, and the number of young adults who binge-drink regularly is on the rise. Binge drinking is commonly described as having 5 or more drinks for a male and 4 or more drinks for a female in a few hours.
“New Hampshire youth are our greatest resource”, said Jonathan Stewart, Director of the Community Health Institute, JSI’s NH office. “Showing them how binge drinking can take away the things they are working hard for and value can empower our youth to make good choices.”
The objectives of the campaign are to educate young adults, aged 21-25, on practical ways to avoid excessive drinking, to change the social norms around binge drinking in NH, and to encourage young adults to take voluntary steps towards changing risky drinking behaviors.
The campaign was developed through formative research including focus groups with more than 100 young adults in New Hampshire. The messaging is intentionally devoid of scare-tactics and negative messages that this audience highlighted as being ineffective. The campaign launched on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat, in February 2018, and garnered nearly 4 million impressions over the first four months it was run.
The National Public Health Information Coalition is the largest network of public health communicators in the United States. It is an independent organization that works alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies to promote public health and prevent disease.
This award marks the fifth year in a row JSI has been recognized by NPHIC for excellence in Health Marketing, and is JSI’s tenth Health Marketing award.
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