Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, killing one person every minute. In San Diego County, it has dropped to second place, next to cancer, but there is still much to be done. Love Your Heart is a campaign that started with the County of San Diego in 2011 to activate people to "know their numbers" and take charge of their heart health.
Chronic diseases are now the major cause of death and disability worldwide. Three behaviors (poor diet, physical inactivity, and tobacco use) contribute to four chronic diseases (cancer, heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, and lung diseases) that cause over 50 percent of all deaths. This is the foundation of the 3-4-50 concept. In the San Diego region, these four chronic diseases are the leading cause of death, and many of these deaths could be prevented in part through positive behavior change.
Love Your Heart is a centerpiece of the regional Live Well San Diego vision, which seeks to help residents be healthy, safe and thriving through aligned efforts of County government and community partners.
At the 2016 Love Your Heart event, which took place on February 11, 2016, we strived to have more than 21,000 people get a free blood pressure screening. To help raise awareness about the risks of heart disease, we also aimed to see an increase in traffic to the Love Your Heart website during the October 2015 through February 2016 promotional period.
Everyone should have the opportunity to live a healthy life. Love Your Heart provides an opportunity for all people to "Know Their Numbers" and take charge of their own heart health. By bringing blood pressure screenings outside of the doctor's office and into non-traditional settings, Love Your Heart makes the medical procedure more accessible to a broader audience. In 2016, the County of San Diego partnered with over 90 organizations to offer free blood pressure screenings throughout San Diego County and the Border States in Mexico including fire stations, schools, libraries, grocery stores, community centers, clinics, and many other locations. Screening also took place in Orange and Los Angeles Counties and the state of Massachusetts.
To reach those with elevated blood pressures and to encourage them to participate in Love Your Heart day, we developed promotional materials, utilized digital media platforms (website, social media, hashtag feeds) and fostered region-wide promotional partnerships (media, community organizations, health organizations, schools, and other Live Well San Diego Recognized Partners). Screening sites also advertised the program locally to residents and their clientele in advance of the event. Additionally, promotional and educational materials were translated into several languages in order to reach county residents that may not speak English as their primary language. These efforts raised awareness of heart health and inspired San Diegans to get their blood pressure checked during the Love Your Heart event.
Adding to these promotional efforts, and recognizing the importance of telling the stories of individuals who participate in Love Your Heart – community members, students and employees who get their blood pressure checked, as well as nurses and volunteers who give their time to make the event a success – the County of San Diego expanded upon a live storytelling campaign launched in 2014 to accompany the local media coverage of the event.
County staff visited screening sites on Love Your Heart day to capture stories, photos and videos on the ground; then they sent these to a team at headquarters who posted the stories on the Live Well San Diego website news page. To generate social engagement around Love Your Heart, the County also implemented a live social media feed using #loveyourheartsd. Community members and volunteers shared photos and captions on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook about their experience, which populated a single feed on the LoveYourHeartSD.org home page.
Additional marketing tools included:
• A social media playbook with example posts and hashtags to encourage event promotion by partners and screening sites
• An interactive zip code map to assist participants during the site registration process in locating the closest public site offering blood pressure screenings
This year's Love Your Heart tagline was "Join the Heart Health Movement." The campaign unites San Diego residents to take part in creating a healthier San Diego region.
We set a goal to have 21,000 people get blood pressure screenings on the fifth annual Love Your Heart event day held February 11, 2016. The event surpassed our goal: more than 90 Love Your Heart partners performed a total of 31,695 blood pressure screenings at 152 sites. One out of every two individuals with a reported blood pressure level in San Diego County was identified as having an elevated blood pressure. Of these, 101 individuals were identified as having urgent or emergent hypertension requiring immediate medical referral.
In addition, steady growth in the number of screenings obtained was achieved each year of the event.
Number of screenings over time:
2016 – 31,675
2015 – 20,400
2014 – 17,700
2013 – 2,016
2012 – 1,300
In order to evaluate the success of the promotional campaign, LoveYourHeartSD.org tracked social media hashtags and posts, as well as website analytics. More than 90 social media posts from community members and partners included #LoveYourHeartSD on Love Your Heart Day. LoveYourHeartSD.org housed information for partners and participants, including screening site locations, promotional materials and media coverage. Website analytics showed an increase in traffic to LoveYourHeartSD.org (compared to an average of 46 unique monthly visitors) during the months leading up to the event, as well as, on the day of the event and throughout the month of February (2,030 unique visitors during February 2016). From October 2015 through February 2016, there were 3,044 unique visitors to LoveYourHeartSD.org and 8,133 page views.
