Rockford Ready Health Literacy Initiative

Amplifying trusted community voices to improve health literacy and COVID-19 vaccination rates in under-resourced communities

The Challenge

Rockford, Illinois, is an urban community with roughly 145,000 residents. Nearly 55% of the city’s residents are living in census tracks with the highest social vulnerability indices (CDC SVI ≥ .75), which means they are at high risk of human suffering and financial loss during public health emergencies.

In July 2021, the City of Rockford, with partners CURA Strategies and the University of Illinois Chicago, was granted a two-year grant of $3.6 million from the U.S. Department of HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary/Office of Minority Health to advance health literacy. The primary objectives of the initiative were to enhance the community’s understanding of COVID-19 public health recommendations, improve vaccination rates and improve provider-patient relationships within Rockford, IL, with a focus on Black/African American and Hispanic/Latinx communities as they are most impacted by COVID-19 and had the lowest rates of vaccination in Rockford.

The Solution

CURA Strategies successfully launched Rockford Ready, a health literacy initiative focused on educating residents on personal health literacy strategies, educating health providers on organizational health literacy, and increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates among under-resourced populations.

To help the City of Rockford achieve their goal of reaching residents where they live, work and play, CURA developed and executed a strategic communications plan to position Rockford Ready as a community-based and community-responsive initiative that included:

Developing the initiative name, branding, messaging and website
Creating and managing the initiative’s Facebook page, email marketing and texting campaign
Securing local and statewide media coverage
Producing print materials to distribute throughout length of grant, such as mailers, door hangers, one-pagers and toolkits
Leveraging diverse, trusted community voices in Rockford to promote COVID-19 vaccination and/or health literacy messaging to residents, including establishing a Health Literacy Task Force comprised of experts and leaders in the community to provide counsel and creating a group of Community Outreach Coordinators to provide hands-on support within the community
Conducting local events with community partners to promote health literacy, community resources and COVID-19 vaccinations
Creating a health literacy poetry/video series with a local young artist to raise awareness of the importance of self-advocacy in a health care setting, which was a winner of the American Public Health Association’s 2023 National Public Health Week Art Contest in the “Teen” category
Developing a scholarship program to encourage local high school students to understand and educate their peers/community about the importance of health literacy
Running radio PSAs with recognized voices concerning COVID-19 vaccines and testing sites
Developing and coordinating an “Ask Your Local Pharmacist” Facebook Live Q&A series with Rockford pharmacists addressing the topics of health literacy and COVID-19
Creating and disseminating health literacy resources to organizations in Rockford to promote organizational health literacy
Facilitating 6 health literacy and cultural humility trainings for clinicians and community health workers in Rockford and supporting post-training consultation throughout the life of the grant

The Results

Rockford Residents reached, exceeding our goal of serving 9,000 by 211%

COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters administered directly through the initiative

total engagements on Facebook

total minutes of viewing time of videos on Facebook

13 pieces

of original coverage of the initiative, including in The Chicago Tribune, WREX News, and WNIJ News.

Partnered with 45+ local organizations

Testimonials

We are so grateful to Falen, and all the amazing CURA team members who work on our project. Rockford Ready is making a difference, thanks to all your organization brings to the table!

Anqunette Parham

Executive Director, City of Rockford Health and Human Services

Rockford Ready has been able to engage with the community, enhance education on COVID vaccination, and introduce fresh concepts around health literacy to residents in a short amount of time. Even if we simply touch a small part of the population, we’re making a large impact. I’m proud to be a part of this initiative!

Alderwoman Gabrielle Torina

Phenomenal work engaging young people (and all people), and helping folks understand the need to advocate for themselves and those they love in health care settings. So many great things to say about your very elegant and on-point work but mostly that it would be our honor to help bring it to a larger audience!

Anna Allen

Co-founder and Executive Director, Say-Ah!