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Travelers’ Health Campaign Earns Honors at NAGC Awards Ceremony

The Travelers’ Health flu prevention campaign has won two National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC) Blue Pencil and Gold Screen Awards.

The awards were presented on May 17, 2010, at a NAGC meeting in Bethesda, Md. Members of ORISE’s Health Communication and Technical Training programs (managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities) were recognized for providing communication and marketing support to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Travelers’ Health campaign, which won first place in the poster category for “Prevention Can Be Travel-Sized” and an award of excellence in the display category for “Stop, Wash & Go.”

“The campaign, led by the CDC Travelers’ Health Communication and Education Team, represents a true collaboration, with participants from across the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, other parts of CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, and Ackermann PR,” said CDC Travelers’ Health branch chief Dr. Gary W. Brunette.

The CDC Travelers’ Health Campaign began development in August and was launched in late November before the start of one of the busiest travel seasons of the year. The primary goal of the campaign was to raise awareness about flu prevention measures among travelers and empower them to take simple, yet effective actions to prevent the spread of flu.

Campaign messages were presented in a positive, encouraging tone and emphasized the importance of travelers doing their part to stay healthy during the flu season, including canceling or delaying travel plans if necessary. The campaign presented behavioral recommendations in a fresh and entertaining way not normally associated with the federal government’s public health prevention messages. Materials were created to be visually appealing and were complete with commercial advertising. The primary audience of the campaign was domestic and international travelers (leisure and business). The secondary audience was health care and travel industry professionals.

NAGC is a national not-for-profit professional network of government employees who disseminate information within and outside government. The Blue Pencil and Gold Screen Awards recognize superior communications efforts of government agencies and employees at the local, state, federal, and international level.