There’s a lot of talk about social determinants of health. But what exactly does that term mean? What are social determinants of health and how do they impact work within social services? And, most importantly, how can knowing about the social determinants of health improve the lives of those around us?
As active members in our community, we were thrilled to have the chance to partner with the Office of Healthy Opportunities within the State of Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) to tackle this important issue.
Working alongside FSSA, we created and implemented an employee engagement campaign to educate state employees about the critical role of social determinants of health on overall health outcomes. This campaign is designed to enable FSSA employees to serve Hoosiers with more compassion, empathy and awareness around the various factors that impact health.
The campaign focused on two primary goals: to educate and build awareness of the social determinants of health and to engage staff across all state agencies to consider how their work impacts the health of Hoosiers.
Engagement Through Storytelling
Targeting more than 4,000 state employees who work in offices across all 92 Indiana counties, the engagement campaign is structured around a yearlong series of monthly themes. These themes include access to food, employment/job training/income, social isolation, adverse childhood events and more.
Our core strategy is to provide educational tools that help employees better understand social determinants of health as more than just a buzzword and provide undemanding calls to action.
Using stories, we illustrated tangible ways Indiana is addressing health and how social needs are being addressed. We use the following communication tools:
- Microsite: A mobile-friendly compilation of stories, information, videos, personal reflections and additional resources
- Email Campaign: Content and video elements around the topic of the month
- Video: Short clips with subject matter experts, packaged by topic for microsite and email deployment
- Quarterly Discussion Guides: Distributed to the Champions of Change, a group of FSSA volunteers, who assist in delivering information and providing feedback to the team about uptake and areas of improvement.
- Environment Graphics: Poster sets and temporary tattoos were sent to FSSA offices across the state.
- Additional Resources: digital banners on the FSSA intranet site and text messages directing people to online content.
By creating a culture of compassion, empathy and awareness around the various factors that impact health, the Office of Health Opportunities not only aligns its goals with the overall health outcomes of the Hoosiers in which they serve but also empowers its employees with the knowledge to help meet (and exceed) those goals.
To see how the social determinants of health impact the lives of those around you, visit healthyopportunitiesin.com
