Dissemination through trusted credible messengers: 133 weeks of the Flint Community Webinar on COVID-19.

Abstract

Background: Community access to evidence-based information is critical, especially during a pandemic, as it can impact knowledge and adoption of health behaviors that affect health disparities. The field of dissemination and implementation (D&I) science is ideally positioned to address this need through its focus on reducing the research-to-practice gap through improved distribution of information. The purpose of this paper is to describe the creation of a weekly webinar series about COVID-19 directed toward community members, and the extent to which webinars were found useful and increased awareness of evidence-based information and services. Lessons learned about this dissemination strategy as well as the selection and involvement of trusted credible messengers (TCMs) to share information are discussed.

Method: Data were derived from Zoom attendance reports, YouTube views, and survey responses collected about the weekly webinar series over 133 weeks from March 20, 2020 through September 30, 2022.

Results: The webinar reached a minimum of 877 unique within-webinar participants, representing more than 9,190 in-webinar participant hours and an additional 17,303 YouTube views. A consistent base of weekly attendees (e.g., service providers, community members) reported increasing levels of satisfaction and utility over time.

Conclusions: This study supports the use of a community webinar series to disseminate evidence-based, locally relevant information through TCMs to improve community access to knowledge of health information and resource utility.