COVID-19 Community Health Worker Outreach Initiative

In November, 2020, Providence Community Health was selected by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to educate communities of color in the South Bay and San Fernando Valley regions of Los Angeles about COVID-19. The Community Health Worker (CHW) Outreach Initiative includes CHWs who provide in-person outreach and education, and a social media campaign to promote accurate COVID-19 information.

Community Health Workers

The CHW Outreach Initiative employs and mobilizes CHWs to provide in-person community outreach in communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Our team of mobile, bilingual CHWs provide outreach in high foot traffic areas such as supermarkets, shopping centers, schools, and churches. They walk the neighborhood, making one-on-one connections with parents, parishioners, consumers, and business owners to educate and inform them about our program's resources. CHWs provided up-to-date information about COVID-19 and the vaccine, assist with vaccine clinics, provide referral and navigation support for clinics and health resources, and distribute free Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and at-home testing kits.

Social Media Campaign

As part of the CHW Outreach Initiative, Providence Community Health designed a five-month social media campaign (December, 2020 – April, 2021) that created and distributed regional COVID educational content for the communities served by the grant. We worked with local Providence physicians and COVID experts, local community leaders, and locally sourced social media influencers to promote COVID risk reduction, educate about the vaccine, and provide inspirational words of affirmation. We partnered with Made Creates to create the videos in English and Spanish and used social media to reach the targeted populations. We also hosted Spanish-language town halls to address the community’s questions and concerns.

Through the lenses of social media, digital content and influencer activations, there was an increase in the number of people educated about COVID risk reduction and the COVID vaccine in the South Bay and San Fernando Valley regions of Los Angeles County. The campaign generated 100+ social posts, including 40 videos from local community leaders that were shared on 7 different Providence social media channels. These posts generated over 2.3 million impressions, 730,000 engagements with 260,000 video views. Our 2 Spanish town halls were the first of their kind at Providence, and these events were live-streamed via Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. The audio was then turned into Providence’s first Spanish-only podcasts. In addition, our 3 influencers amplified COVID education messaging to almost 215,000 social media followers.

In 2022, Providence Community Health was recognized by the Health Care Communicators of Southern California’s Finest Awards for its COVID-19 social media campaign. The team received the gold award in the category of public relations: health and wellness advocacy. Read more about the award.