Frontiers in outreach and education: The Florida red tide experience

To enhance information sharing and garner increased support from the public for scientific research, funding agencies now typically require that research groups receiving support convey their work to stakeholders. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) funded Aerosolized Florida Red Tide P01 research group (Florida Red Tide Research Group) has employed a variety of outreach strategies to meet this requirement. Messages developed from this project began a decade ago and have evolved from basic print material (fliers and posters) to an interactive website, to the use of video and social networking technologies, such as Facebook and Twitter. The group was able to track dissemination of these information products; however, evaluation of their effectiveness presented much larger challenges. The primary lesson learned by the Florida Red Tide Research Group is that the best ways to reach specific stakeholders are to develop unique products or services to address specific stakeholders’ needs, such as the Beach Conditions Reporting System. Based on the experience of the Group, the most productive messaging products result when scientific community engages potential stakeholders and outreach experts during the very initial phases of a project.

Research highlights▸ We review outreach efforts from a 10 year red tide and human health study. ▸ Changes in outreach methods are due to the evolution of media techniques available. ▸ Changes from pamphlets to websites, videos and social networks are beneficial. ▸ Benefits include automated evaluations and data collection.