Using Information Graphics To Engage Community Partners With The InPACT Program

PURPOSE: The Interrupting Prolonged sitting with ACTivity (InPACT) program encourages physical activity participation within the home and school environments. Program resources are distributed, in part, through digital monthly newsletters to a diverse audience of 434 families, educators, school administrators, health coordinators, government and public health officials. During the first few months of distribution, there was low audience engagement with one particular resource: the family engagement modules. This warranted the identification and use of more effective health communication strategies to enhance audience engagement. This study assessed the effect of adding infographics, an efficacious strategy of communicating health information, to increase engagement with the modules within the InPACT newsletters. METHODS: Infographics were developed for each module and informed by the Health Belief Model constructs, mainly perceived benefits and cues of action. Newsletter distribution began in September 2022; infographics were included in the newsletter beginning in December 2022, and again from February 2023 to September 2023. To control for the confounding effect of module topic, engagement with the September 2022 and 2023 newsletters was compared, which featured the same module (with and without an infographic). Audience engagement (clicks on module links) was measured using MailChimp Analytics, an email marketing automation platform. RESULTS: Average engagement with the module links from September to November 2022 was 13.6%. Following the addition of infographics, average engagement from February to September 2023 increased to 16.2%. In September 2022, engagement was 5.7%. In September 2023, engagement increased to 11.6%. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, integrating infographics increased audience engagement with the modules by 19%. Our findings suggest infographics can be an effective communication strategy to market health behaviors to InPACT community partners. Future research can qualitatively examine how the InPACT audience engages with the infographics and whether this engagement influences subsequent health behavior adoption and practice.