A Digital Campaign to Combat Opioid Misuse and Stigma in Fairfax County, Virginia
![images from the opioid campaign. Left, a multigenerational family cooks with text overlaid emphasizing to share recipes, not pills; middle, 7 safety actions to protect your loved ones from an overdose; right, a woman speaks with her doctor with spanish translated text.](/sites/default/files/2023-10/10758_ERGnewsOpioid.png)
ERG continued supporting Fairfax County, Virginia, in its efforts to raise awareness about opioid misuse and growing concerns about accidental overdoses from fentanyl. Fairfax County tasked ERG with developing a public awareness campaign to increase awareness around the safe use, storage, and disposal of prescription opioids; decrease the stigma around substance use disorder; raise awareness of local resources; and prevent opioid misuse. In particular, the county sought to reach targeted audiences with social risk factors, including Black, Hispanic, and Latinx/Latine communities; the LGBTQIA+ community; and youth.
Building on our past work, ERG launched a digital ad campaign on Twitter, Nextdoor, and Snapchat. The short, 60-day campaign included English and Spanish ads that received 4.7 million impressions, reached more than 1 million people, and garnered over 167,000 engagement actions, such as likes, comments, shares, retweets, link clicks, and filter uses. ERG researched and developed content for the campaign with a focus on three primary themes: “share,” which reminds audiences to share positive experiences but not their medications; “fentanyl facts,” which provides safety tips about fentanyl-laced substances; and “safe spaces,” which encourages audiences to seek help or help create safe spaces for others. To effectively reach and empower target audiences, ERG employed a culture-first approach at every phase of the work, including developing culturally relevant content specific to target audiences in English and Spanish.