PHAST (Public Health and Safety Team)

Provisional CDC Data indicates that overdose deaths in the U.S. have increased by 30%. Addressing this crisis requires strong and collaborative multi-sector partnerships within communities. Bridging the gaps between public health and public safety, however, this can be particularly difficult given their different roles, duties, and trainings. To address this gap, our organization was engaged by the CDC Foundation and the CDC's Division of Overdose Prevention to develop a series of integrated marketing and training collateral.

Our work included collaborating on a Public Health and Safety Team (PHAST) toolkit, including creation of a brand identity (e.g., stylescape, brand mark, style sheet, and overall visual direction), a branded presentation for use by the CDC Foundation and CDC, as well as a dynamic website with easy-to-use checklists and fact sheets, a series of web-based videos, and e-learning training modules to support local jurisdictions by increasing coordination to reduce opioid overdose deaths. For example, Impact Marketing + Communications created an animated video to explain how PHASTs and Overdose Fatality Review (OFR) teams can be used together to analyze aggregate and case-level data in jurisdictions to better identify opportunities to implement and improve overdose prevention--which was presented to nationwide stakeholders by CDC staff.

Impact Marketing + Communications also supported dissemination materials by developing a social media toolkit with "plug and play" graphics and sample content for cross promotion by partners and key stakeholders, and additional promotional assets, such as infographics, videos, and trailers. We also designed an associated training document to help epidemiologists across the country better understand and analyze their data to report on and prevent drug overdoses.