Making the Case for Infectious Disease Infrastructure: Sharing Stories

BACKGROUND: The ability for state health agencies to quickly detect and respond to infectious diseases depends on having a strong infrastructure in place. State health agencies require effective and efficient systems and staff for preventing infectious disease morbidity and mortality, ensuring control of outbreaks and vigilance against diminishing diseases, and preventing and responding to reemerging and emerging infectious disease threats. The goal of ASTHO's Infrastructure project is to increase awareness of and support for state health agencies’ critical infectious disease infrastructure programs.

METHODS: ASTHO has developed materials including overviews on infectious disease and immunization infrastructure and a series of fact sheets on infrastructure activities and funding. ASTHO staff have also collected specific examples and stories of the importance of general infectious disease infrastructure, and in addition specific infrastructure gains resulting from increased activities and funding during H1N1. More recently, ASTHO has developed a communications toolkit to be used to articulate the importance and concrete benefits of infectious disease infrastructure, with the ability to supplement the conversation with local stories and examples. The communications toolkit contains samples and examples of communicating through the media, including an opinion editorial that illustrates the importance of infrastructure in Washington State’s response to pertussis, and another written by former CDC Directors outlining the critical need for infrastructure in the recent response to meningitis.

RESULTS: Materials have been distributed to state health agency staff at national meetings and through the ASTHO weekly newsletter, and are posted on a dedicated page on the ASTHO website. The materials developed can be used in educating stakeholders and policymakers about critical infectious disease infrastructure and the work of state health agencies. Through these materials and ongoing support, ASTHO seeks to provide states with tools and resources to tell their stories and give concrete examples of the value of investing in infectious disease infrastructure.

CONCLUSIONS: This poster presentation focuses on ASTHO's efforts to increase awareness of and support for state health agencies' critical infectious disease infrastructure programs through storytelling, using the suggestions in the communications toolkit for crafting impactful messages and making infectious disease infrastructure relevant to the public. [The communications toolkit and other materials will be shared with attendees. ASTHO will also share stories collected through the internal “Have You Shared” campaign that highlight promising or useful practices developed by state and territorial health agencies.]