With fall on the horizon and kids back at school, community health workers who aim to get more people vaccinated for flu and COVID-19 have their work cut out for them.
Many health workers are finding innovative ways to provide medically accurate information in the midst of growing mistrust and misinformation about vaccines.
To learn more from CBOs who have turned to digital platforms to get the word out to their communities, Public Good News spoke with Dr. Ileana Ponce-González, executive director and founder of the Community Health Workers Coalition for Migrants and Refugees.
She talked about how her organization uses the radio to build a network for health workers across the state of Washington.
Here’s what she said.
[Editor’s note: The contents of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.]
PGN: Can you talk about how your organization started leveraging the radio?
Dr. Ileana Ponce-González: Our radio programs really began out of a need to respond to our community in real time during the pandemic.
I mean, we reinvented ourselves, right? Because people couldn’t go outside anymore, people were uninformed. When the pandemic first started, most of the information was only in English, or you had to go to a webpage or use the internet—which made it very hard for our community to get information that was already in Spanish.
So, we started our radio and we began to inform the community about many things.
I remember that one of the first challenges we had was to denounce the injustice that was taking place with farm workers and Latinos, mainly because, here in the state of Washington, the priority was older adults.
If you recall, the first COVID-19 case started here, precisely in Washington. It was in the nursing homes, where we lost many people. So, everything was focused on this population, but then, when COVID-19 kept spreading, those who were dying were Latinos, mainly farm workers. We were really forgotten by the government and didn’t have choices.
In other words, most people could stay home, working peacefully and continuing to earn money. Rural workers and essential workers in hospitals, in food courts, laundries—all of that—had to keep working in person.
So, we began with a letter to the state demanding that they recognize farm workers as essential workers, because when those essential group classifications came, they didn’t think about them.
PGN: What impact has producing radio shows had on your vaccination work?
I.P-G.: Our radio program has been a success, and we keep working to raise awareness about COVID-19.
Every vaccine, every vaccination drive we do has had total success in places where the government is unable to penetrate and claims that people don’t want to be vaccinated.
In our last vaccine drive in Aberdeen, we managed to get 18 people in a very small town vaccinated for the first time. And they were all Latinos.
We take the time to explain to them that it’s better to get the vaccine than to get sick. And ask them if it’s better to take the risk of not having the vaccine and dying.
Because people have already let their guard down. People think that we no longer die from COVID-19. But there are different variants, and remember that COVID-19 has changed several times, right?
And if a virus circulates that’s stronger, let’s say, for people who are children, the elderly, pregnant mothers, or people who live with chronic diseases such as HIV, diabetes, cancer, they can die if they don’t have the vaccine.
PGN: Why do you think radio as a medium is effective at reaching Latinos?
I.P-G.: Look, Latinos have always been at the forefront of technology, especially with cell phones.
Why? Because our family is far away and it’s the way we communicate with them, right? All rural workers, all Latino people, I think, have a cell phone. If they can afford it, there’s at least one per family. Maybe not one for each member, but there is one. And we know how to manage it.
So, FM radio is good because people go in the car and they listen to it, right? And they listen to the news when they go to and from work or when they are at lunch time.
Virtual radio is even more impactful. Why? Because you can listen to it live. But there are also recorded programs and with those you have a wider audience.
It has deep penetration. FM radio can be heard across Washington state, but we are heard across the world. Our radio is a virtual radio station.
And, because our coalition is made up of immigrants from Peru, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Venezuela, we’re heard all over.
So, when we’re doing a show with these people, their relatives listen to us from their home countries. We’ve even had people from Italy and Germany.
It’s a fast, efficient medium and a medium that, even if people are not there at that time, they can listen to us from everywhere because it has broad reach, like the internet, and it’s free. It’s a medium where people choose what they want to hear.
We don’t have advertising because we’re really not commercial; we’re here to inform the community. What we have are educational messages through which you’ll hear about topics like life-saving vaccines, or perinatal depression, and the other programs we have, which also interest the community.
COVID-19 completely changed the world. So, our thought process changed to the virtual, to digital media.
PGN: What advice would you give to community health workers interested in using radio to distribute public health information?
I.P-G.: It’s a super effective medium. I like that I have my program and maybe there are 10 people, and then, on the same day, there can be 100 or 800 people listening, depending on the topic. So, the data you have to evaluate the program is immediate.
You are looking at what keeps people’s attention the most. And you can adapt the program because you are measuring [the feedback] almost immediately.
You can adapt to what the community wants to hear.
Another thing about our radio is that we get to chat with people. People can ask questions or make comments through the chat to be informed. And that’s very nice.
I would tell any non-profit organization that works for their community that radio is an effective means of communication and that, if they have not made connections with radio or don’t have a radio station, that they should experiment to see what it’s like to transmit information through it, because our community does listen to the radio. Whether it’s FM, AM or virtual.
This article is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award to the CDC Foundation totaling $69,392,486 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CDC/HHS, or the U.S. Government. In addition, the CDC Foundation does not guarantee and is not responsible for the accuracy or reliability of information or content contained in this article. Moreover, the CDC Foundation expressly disclaims all liability for damages of any kind arising out of use, reference to, or reliance on any information contained within this article. This article are not intended as, and should not be interpreted by you as, constituting or implying the CDC Foundation’s endorsement, sponsorship, or recommendation of the information, products, or services found therein.