Whether a woman has or has not used substances does NOT make a difference regarding who she is and it should NOT matter to anybody but her.
Anonymous Client
This campaign was developed in collaboration with the Karis Support Society (Karis) to address the following communication concern: inaccessibility of health information pertaining to women’s substance use and lack thereof. It aims to spread awareness on women’s substance use and improve health communication through non-stigmatizing language and dissemination of research (Greaves and Poole, 2007).
As social media continues to be part of daily life, online advocacy is on the rise via educational and informative content (Rutherford et al., 2022). Combining these technologies with graphic design, I create a multimodal type of messaging that is unrestricted by technicalities and physical distance, showcasing how social media campaigns can relay and promote public health messaging (Moorhead et al., 2013; Crano et al., 2001; Gutierrez et al., 2017).
To highlight intersectional and sociodemographic barriers women face, the campaign situates specific issues within three topics (History of Women’s Substance Use in Canada, Stigmatizing Language and How Women Specifically are Stigmatized, and Systemic Barriers Women Who Use Substances Face) in the context of a unique theme (Truth and Reconciliation, Growth and Shame, and Motherhood and Family) each month.
This campaign was largely informed by an interview with Karis’ director and questionnaires filled out by clients. The interview was conducted to learn more about women’s substance use in our region—the Okanagan, whereas the questionnaire asks clients about their experiences, preferred language, and what part of nature strongly resonated with their journeys to incorporate them into the posts as per Karis’ request.
Prototypes were made with Adobe Express and had gone through two rounds of checking by the director and community and socials manager in regards to fact checking, technical language, and visual aesthetic.
It was launched in the summer of 2024 which lead up to Karis’ biggest destigmatization event of the year—Recovery Day, an annual Canadian holiday in September celebrating those in recovery.
References
Crano, W. D., Burgoon, M., & Oskamp, S. (2001). Mass Media and Drug Prevention: Classic and Contemporary Theories and Research. L. Erlbaum.
Greaves, L., & Poole, N. (2007). Highs and Lows: Canadian Perspectives of Women and Substance Use. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health / Centre de toxicomanie et de santé mentale.
Gutierrez, M. A., Moreno, R. A., & Rebelo, M. S. (2017). Information and Communication Technologies and Global Health Challenges. Global Health Informatics, 50–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-804591-6.00004-5
Moorhead, S. A., Hazlett, D. E., Harrison, L., Carroll, J. K., Irwin, A., & Hoving, C. (2013). A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 15(4). https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.1933
Rutherford, B. N., Lim, C. C., Johnson, B., Cheng, B., Chung, J., Huang, S., Sun, T., Leung, J., Stjepanović, D., & Chan, G. C. (2022). #turnttrending: A systematic review of substance use portrayals on social media platforms. Addiction, 118(2), 206–217. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.16020
(Please click on image to see each post live on Karis’ Instagram)