# Presentation: 083279

## Slide 1

**Dr. Harold T. Shapiro**
**President Emeritus**
**Princeton University**

## Today’s Schedule

**8:15****	****Welcome**
**	****	****	****Secretary Michael Leavitt**
**8:45****	****Setting the Stage for Individual Preparedness**
**	****	****	****Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, Homeland Security Council**
**9:30****	****Pandemic Influenza Preparedness**
**	****	****	****Dr. Julie Gerberding, Centers for Disease Control & ****	****	****	****Prevention**
**10:15****	****Break**
**10:30****	****A Vision for a Preparedness Movement**
**	****	****	****Stephanie A. Marshall, Director of Pandemic**
**	****	****	****Communications, HHS**

## Today’s Schedule

**11:15****	****Panel Discussion**
**12:15 ****	****Break**
**12:30****	****Working Lunch & Breakout Sessions**
**3:00****	****Break**
**3:15 ****	****Report-Out from Breakouts**
**4:00****	****Closing Remarks**
**	****	****	****Dr. John Agwunobi, Assistant Secretary for Health, HHS**

**Notes:**
The Breakout sessions are designed as working sessions to get your feedback on campaign messages, and to learn about the tools you and your peers will need in order to effectively communicate about pandemic influenza.

One person from each group should be designated as the spokesperson for the group to report back on any challenges and opportunities you uncovered in your sessions.

## Housekeeping

**Restrooms are located on this floor just past the elevators**
**Restrooms on the Lower Level are also near the elevators**
**In the event of an emergency, you may exit the building on this level in the back of the room and to your right as you exit this room.  On the main level of the hotel their are clearly marked exits in front and directly beneath us**

## Housekeeping

**Please set your electronic devices to “off” or “vibrate/silent”**
**You must wear your name badges at all times to gain entrance to the sessions**
**On the back of your name tags there are color coded dots that will direct you to the proper breakout rooms on the lower level.  Please refer to your map for the proper room.**
**Please be aware that we are audio taping today’s main sessions**

## Blog Summit

**Online conversation started two weeks ago**
**Will continue through the month of June**
**Please be part of the dialog after you leave today**
**www.blog.pandemicflu.gov**

## Blog Summit

**We will be “Live Blogging” today.  Forum organizers may ask you to stand for a brief video interview on what you are learning or why you are participating.  You have the option of saying “no,” but we hope you will feel comfortable sharing your thoughts**
**These video clips will be part of the ongoing blog but are not posted as part of the “Live Blogging”**

## Welcome

**The Honorable Michael O. Leavitt**
**Secretary**
**U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**

## Setting the Stage for Individual Preparedness

**Rajeev Venkayya, MD**
**Special Assistant to the President **
**for Biodefense**
**Homeland Security Council**

## Pandemic Influenza Preparedness

**Julie Gerberding, MD, MPH, Director **
**U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention**

**Break**

## A Vision For A Preparedness Movement

**Stephanie A. Marshall**
**Director of Pandemic Communications**
**Office of the Assistant Secretary **
**for Public Affairs**
**U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**

**Notes:**
Dr. Shapiro, thank you for that kind introduction.  And I want to thank the previous speakers for their remarks about the current pandemic threat, the steps the federal government is taking to prepare the Nation, and why pandemic planning is a shared responsibility.  

There are many challenges to engaging the general public in this discussion, and encouraging them to take a few steps now to prepare.  

This morning, I would to share with you our vision for overcoming some of these challenges and creating a preparedness movement in communities across the county.

For the next 20 to 25 minutes, I will talk about the challenges we face in educating the public about this topic  and how you, as leaders within your respective fields, can play a role in helping the people you represent, employee, serve and care for take the necessary steps to prepare now for a pandemic.

Next slide

## Overall HHS Communications Objectives

- Raise awareness of avian and pandemic influenza and the impact a pandemic could have on human health
- Support states and local communities plan, prepare for and respond to a pandemic
- Educate key stakeholders and the public about the role they play in preparing for a pandemic and the necessary steps
- Create a foundation of pandemic awareness and knowledge to support future response and recovery efforts
- Instill and maintain public confidence in the nation’s public health system and its ability to respond to a pandemic influenza outbreak
- Speak with one voice, as a global citizen and as nation

**Notes:**
Briefly, the Department’s overall  pandemic preparedness goals are to:
Save lives and reduce illness in the event of a pandemic
Ensure that the Nation, our communities and citizens are prepared for a potential pandemic and
Maintain order and minimize fear in the event of a pandemic. 

Communications is a key component of pandemic planning because during a pandemic, information could be life saving.

So to support these goals we have a number of key communications objectives:
One, to Raise awareness and educate the general public, and key stakeholders, about avian and pandemic influenza and the steps they should take to prepare for a pandemic.
Create a foundation of pandemic awareness and knowledge to support future response and recovery efforts
Support states and local communities plan, prepare for and respond to a pandemic
Instill and maintain public confidence in the Nation’s public health system  AND
Speak with one voice, both as a global citizen and as a Nation

We are undertaking  three main activities to support these objectives including providing state and local planning summit, bolstering our own communications programs to esnure that we can communicate effectively and efficiently during a pandemic, and to educate the general public about the pandemic threat and to help them take steps now to prepare. 

Next slide

## How do People Feel about Preparing for a Pandemic?

- I don’t believe it’s a real problem.

- DISBELIEVERS

- It’s not important enough.

- UNENGAGED

- Preparing won’t help anyway.

- FATALISTS

- I can’t deal with it.

- AVOIDERS

- I can’t do it.

- UNABLE

- It’s not my job.

- INFLUENCERS

- I’ve already done it.

- PREPARERS

**Notes:**
As Dr. Gerberding mentioned, there are many barriers that prevent people 
from preparing. And those of you who are already involved in pandemic 
influenza issues know that this is a complicated, multifaceted problem.  

There are so many interesting, yet difficult, issues to grapple with that it is 
understandable how people might throw up their hands and say “its just too big 
for me to do anything about it.”  

So how can we tackle this problem?  We have some thoughts to share with 
you and get your reactions to.  Keep in mind that each of you represents an 
important sector of our society – and you have unique relationships with the 
people you serve.  Some of you are trusted employers.  Others trusted faith 
leaders or civic leaders, or health care providers. 

## Our Goal

- To help as many Americans as possible to understand that the threat of pandemic influenza is real and to actively engage in personal preparedness

**Notes:**
Our goal is to:

## What if ...

- A business owner sends a notice to his staff telling them about a new pandemic effort at work, and asking them to take some steps at home.  Sarah reads it and wonders what it’s all about.
- Junior League starts a “drive” to get every member to commit to 3 preparedness activities.  Sarah opens the letter and posts it on the fridge for later.
- That Sunday at church the pastor announces a new project to develop an emergency “supply pantry” for needy community members.
- Sarah goes home and says “This must be serious. Let’s see what I can do.”

**Notes:**
Let’s take for a minute how a single person might be impacted through her relationships with you, and people like you.  Imagine for a moment a day or week in the life of someone in your community:  Sarah.  
A  business owner sends a notice to his staff telling them about a new pandemic effort at work, and asking them to take some steps at home.  Sarah reads it and wonders what it’s all about.  She remembers hearing something on the news about bird flu, but she thought the problem was long gone as she hasn’t heard anything about it lately.

The Junior League starts a “drive” to get every member to commit to 3 preparedness activities.  Sarah opens the letter and posts it on the fridge for later.

That Sunday at church the pastor announces a new project to develop an emergency “supply pantry” for needy community members.

Sarah goes home and says “This must be serious.  Let’s see what I can do.”

## Vision: Creating a Symphony by Leveraging Unique Spheres of Influence

**Notes:**
One way to create a situation like this for our community members is for each of us to play one particular role in encouraging and helping those we influence to prepare.  

For example, . . . . 

Every community leader, whether it is a religious leader, an well-respected business person, a health care provider, or civic organization head, has a unique influence on the people they represent.  

Taken together, these individuals we can encourage to prepare.  Each of us, as leaders in our respective fields can play a unique role in addressing people’s concerns, showing them how to prepare and providing opportunities and encouragement to get prepared.

So, how do we do this? 

Next slide

## Our Approach

- We will activate influencers, help them demonstrate how and what to do and engage people to participate and spread the word in their communities.

**Notes:**
We have developed a campaign that will work with national, state and local 
leaders to reach individuals and families with messages and matierls about 
pandemic preparedness.

Our campaign plan has 3 phases:
One:  Activate:  to engage you, as national influencers, into this collaborative effort with us.
Two:  Demonstrate:  show people how to prepare 
And three:  Participate: create opportunities through which people can prepare for  themselves and their families

Next slide

## Activate in Layers

**Communities & Individuals**

**Champions**

**Influencers**

**Leaders**

**HHS**

**Notes:**
We are at step 1: Activate.  We’d like for you to join us and reach back into your organizations to encourage other influencers at the state and local levels to take on this challenge.

But how do we know that this approach will work?  Why do we believe working with community leaders to help individuals and families prepare for a pandemic will work?  

Next slide

## We’ve Done A Lot of Homework

- Our research was designed to understand the ability of key influencers within communities to deliver pandemic preparedness messages to their constituencies.

| Influencer Sector  | Type of Participant |
| --- | --- |
| Faith-Based Leaders | Priests, pastors, rabbis, imams, reverends, ministers |
| Community Group Leaders | Current leaders and active members of YMCA, PTA, Boys and Girls Club, Lions Club, civic clubs, scout leaders, neighborhood associations |
| Healthcare Providers | Primary care providers, family or general practitioners, nurse practitioners, pediatricians.  |
| Employers | Owners or human resources managers of small- and medium-sized businesses |

**Notes:**
We’ve done our homework.
W conducted several phases of research to find out more about what your peers and colleagues, at the local level,  know and think about pandemic preparedness – and what they might be willing to do in their own communities.

We conducted focus groups with religious leaders, civic leaders, including presidents of the local YMCA and soccer federation, doctors and nurses, and small to mid-size business owners and HR reps.  

In total  . . . 

Next slide

## Research Plan

**We conducted 11 focus groups with: **
**Faith-based leaders**
**Employers**
**Community influencers**
**We conducted 16 in-depth interviews via telephone with healthcare providers. **

**Notes:**
We conducted nearly a dozen focus groups with faith-based leaders, employer, and community leaders.

And we conducted 16 in-depth interviews, via telephone, with health care providers  

We asked them about the pandemic threat, whether or not they had taken steps to prepare, such as creating a continuity plan, and whether they would consider encouraging the people they represent to  prepare for a pandemic.

Here’s is what we learned, and why are here today  . . .. 

Next slide

## Overall Findings: Research with Influencers

**Before trying to motivate others to prepare for a pandemic, participants would want confirmation of the threat from a trusted source. Across all groups, participants mentioned CDC most often as an example of a trusted source. **
**Participants had a basic understanding of the term “pandemic influenza.” **
**Participants did not perceive the threat as sufficiently imminent to warrant action. **

**Notes:**
. Participants across all sectors had a basic understanding of pandemic influenza, but they needed facts and figures to help them understand why they should be concerned about it now. 
1. We shared our messages about the threat of pandemic and the importance of preparedness.  Once they learned that its about If not When and about the serious consequences, they saw a reason to be involved, and they believed it is an important issue for their community.
2. They asked for the health information to come from HHS and CDC.  Except for the healthcare providers, they don’t see themselves as health authorities and don’t want to overstep their expertise.
3. Many participants said that they would be more likely to engage in this effort if their national organizations were on board, too. They wanted to “be part of something” and did not want to feel all alone in their efforts.
4. They’d like their local health departments to be involved and to be a resource.  Many have relationships with the health department already on other matters, and this network makes sense to them.
5. They shared with us the ways they might reach out to those they influence.  They also shared their thoughts for things they would not be as willing to do.  Obviously, this varied by sector and across the participants.
6. They asked us to keep our tone serious and not use any fancy “marketing” on them.  Over and over, they told us “this is a serious topic and we are serious people.”

## Many See This As An Imperative

***	******	******	******“******This [pandemic flu preparedness] is a serious message***
***	******	******	******that we need to take action.”  ***
***Participant in Faith-based focus group***
**Described their role as providing guidance, assistance, encouragement, and hope not only in organizations, but also in communities. Felt it was their responsibility to increase awareness of pandemic flu and encourage people to prepare. **

## Local Leaders Need National Support

***	******	******	******“******You’d have to start with the United States Soccer ******	******	******	******	******Federation, Youth Soccer Association, work down, get them***
***	******	******	******to get the word out. And then what would happen is, the***
***	******	******	******local organizations might feel more comfortable getting***
***	******	******	******involved because it’s a national initiative.” ***
**Participant in Community Influencer focus group.**
**Participants wanted low-cost or no-cost ways to share information that could be sent through organizational listservs.**

## Health Care Providers Are Still Not Convinced

**Participants had an understanding of pandemic flu. Many described it as a massive worldwide illness but didn’t feel that the threat to the U.S. was severe. **
**Some participants thought pandemic was not important to discuss with patients in the limited amount of time available. They described needing real facts, figures, and statistics to show patients the importance of pandemic flu.**

## Strong Employer – Employee Connection

**“****Work Family” Described**
***	******	******	******“******We have a family oriented kind of close knit environment so***
***	******	******	******what affects one of our workers affects us all including our***
***	******	******	******families.  So we definitely would want to have information.  And***
***	******	******	******we definitely would want to be prepared in the event of a***
***	******	******	******emergency.”***
***Participant in Employer Focus Group***
- Described role as decision makers. Smaller businesses described their role as leader of employees and many indicated their business had a strong sense of family.

## Public Wants to Hear From Local Leaders

- Focus groups conducted May 23—May 31
- Calverton, Maryland
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Chicago, Illinois
- Tested general awareness and knowledge re pandemic influenza and the role of community leaders in distributing messages and materials about pandemic preparedness.

**Notes:**
General Public
We also conducted focus groups with members of the public to ask them how they might react to encouragement from leaders like you and your members to prepare for a pandemic.  
1. Like the influencers, the general public participants had a basic understanding of pandemic influenza, but they needed facts and figures to help them understand why they should be concerned about it now. 
2. Hearing the key messages about pandemic influenza and the importance of getting prepared raised the participant’s levels of concern and they wanted to hear what they can do to prepare. 
3. The participants said that it would make a big difference to their sense of urgency if they heard this information from many sources, from those they trust – from you – their doctors, bosses, faith leaders, communities leaders -- about this. They also mentioned local government leaders and the CDC.
4. We asked them to tell us which leaders could encourage them to take on certain preparedness activities.  The results were astounding. (SHOW FOCUS GROUP FLIP CHART).  This is a chart from one of those groups – the participants were asked to put dots by those sectors of community they felt should communicate the importance of pandemic preparedness – and you can see from the array of dots in every quadrant that they want to hear about these things from all of you.  Their response to this activity was very compelling – and tells us that we might be onto something here.

## Blog Summit Overview

- May 22 – June 27
- 10, 500 unique visitors in the first week
- Average of 7 minutes per visit
- More than 700 comments to 20 Posts
- 156 links from 61 blogs
- All 50 states, more than 70 countries, 6 continents

**Notes:**
But we didn’t stop at traditional focus groups as a way to learn more about pandemic preparedness.  

New media, such as blogs, wikis, message boards and other user-generated content sites, are becoming strong indicators of public views.  We knew that we had to use this growing form of communications to learn more about public views and perceptions about pandemic planning.

So, we launched one of the government’s first dedicated blog sites to a single topice.  

Many of you have participated over the last several weeks in our first Blog Summit.  We’ve invited people – all people – to talk with us about this issue.  Many people have expressed a desire to see us reach out to Americans and encourage them to prepare.  And that’s exactly what we are here to talk about.  One of the main themes of discussion has been about preparing – and it has always been true that preparing is a shared responsibility.  HHS is doing its part to prepare the infrastructure and develop medical tools.  But every individual has to be ready to withstand the blow of a pandemic.  

The Blog has been visited by people in every U.S. state and territory, 6 contents and 60 countries.

All of our efforts to prepare for a pandemic cannot prevent one from occurring.  The goal of preparing is to make it lessen the impact – minimize illness, death, and disruption to our lives and to our society. 

## Blog Summit Feedback

- Vigorous discussion
- Themes are emerging
***Community/local-level preparedness***
***All-hazards vs. pandemic specific preparedness***
***Public awareness concerns and ideas***
***Health care concerns for nurses***
***The potential threat of TB***
***Stockpiling concerns and ideas***
**www.blog.pandemicflu.gov **

**Notes:**
Add thoughts about blog.  Thank participants.

## We Need Your Help

**Communities & Individuals**

**Champions**

**Influencers**

**Leaders**

**HHS**

**Notes:**
Our research tells us that people look to community leaders for guidance and for information.  

The Secretary is committed to helping every American become better prepared for pandemic influenza

And we would like your help.

This afternoon’s breakout sessions are your opportunity to provide your comments to our efforts and proposed tools.   

And, on behalf of the department, I will ask that your involvement not end today.  We hope that you will continue to be engaged in this effort by talking to your peers and constituents at the national and local levels about the need to help the people you represent take a few steps to prepare for a pandemic.

Thank you very much for your time.  I would be happy to take some questions or to clarify anything I have presented this morning.  

## Panel Discussion

- Greg Dworkin, MD
- FluWiki

- Dennis Roche
- FedEx

- Russell M. Nelson, MD, PhD
- Latter Day Saints

- Susan Crosson-Knutson
- Lions Clubs

- Joseph Bocchini, MD
- American Academy of Pediatrics

**Lunch**
**Please help yourself on the Lower Level and go to your color-coded breakout rooms on lower level.**

## Working Lunch

**Breakout Sessions:**
**Green:****	****Ashlawn****	****	****	****Employer**
**Red:****	****	****Sagamore I****	****	****Health**
**Blue:****	****	****Sagamore II****	****	****Health**
**Yellow:****	****Madison****	****	****	****Faith-Based**
**Orange:****	****Grand Ballroom I****	****Community**

**Report Out**

## Thank You

**John Agwunobi, MD, MBA, MPH**
**Assistant Secretary for Health**
**U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**