Dime La VerDAD: Verify, Debunk, and Disseminate

Dime la Verdad (Tell me the truth) will evaluate the use of storytelling by community health workers as a communication strategy to disseminate reliable health information on social media and encourage informed decision-making in favor of recommended immunizations in communities with high morbidity and mortality due to respiratory virus infections. Dime La Verdad is an innovative social media capacity-building program based on theoretical frameworks related to health communication that empowers community health workers to disseminate reliable information about respiratory virus protection strategies through the use of personal narratives on social media. The proposed work will use a rigorous stepped wedge design to 1) deliver a scalable program of science communicators using an adapted curriculum grounded in principles of health communication, 2) evaluate how diffusion of health messaging is perceived on social media, and 3) discern how use of personal narratives to enhance science communication can encourage informed decision-making to promote evidence-based immunization practices and improve health outcomes.