Breaking Stigmas, Building Empathy: Saving lives through Harm Reduction with the Ingham County Health Department
Mar 27, 2025
Services: Community Relations and Grassroots Advocacy, Digital Media, Strategy and Planning, Visual Storytelling, Writing
Background
In 2022, 2,993 Michigan residents died from drug-involved overdoses– roughly eight people each day. Faced with this epidemic harming the Lansing community, the Ingham County Health Department (ICHD) and their Ingham Opioid Awareness & Prevention Initiative (IOAPI) had three goals: expand access to harm reduction services, destigmatize its practices, and keep people alive.
Harm reduction is a proven, evidence-based approach that provides life-saving tools and support, meeting people where they are on their recovery journey. Piper & Gold partnered with ICHD and IOAPI to develop an educational campaign, connecting substance users and their loved ones to critical harm reduction resources.
Research
To begin our campaign, Piper & Gold sought to understand how our target audiences view harm reduction and which messages and visual components are most effective in communicating its benefits.
Focus Groups:
A focus group was conducted at The Fledge in Lansing, a nonprofit that supports community members living under the ALICE threshold, including those battling substance use.
Key Findings:
- 50% of people who use substances don’t know where to access safe use supplies.
- Audience members disliked accusatory messages that shamed or included unnecessary, “cheesy” or misleading verbiage.
- Social media, online advertising and billboards are the most common ways they receive information.
Online Survey:
An online survey was conducted to understand the perceptions of community members who had a friend or family member who suffered from substance use.
Key Findings:
- 79% of respondents indicated having information on how to support their loved one was most helpful.
- Messaging that was optimistic, realistic and did not over-promise its benefits resonated most.
- Social media and radio were the most likely ways to catch their attention.
Implementation:
P&G created an integrated marketing campaign featuring digital and traditional advertising techniques, including:
- Billboards
- Social media advertising
- Flyers
- Rack cards
- A toolkit with templates and ready-to-print materials shared with community partners to increase the project's reach.
Results:
- Social media advertisements averaged 48,491 impressions and 323 link clicks per post.
- Billboard advertisements generated 108,000 impressions.
- Radio ads produced a 97.19% completion rate and had an estimated 125,660 impressions.
- Google advertisements received 82,200 impressions.
- Data collected from January to June 2023 indicated a decrease in the number of fatal overdoses statewide.
Summary:
Our campaign helped raise awareness, empower loved ones and shift perceptions toward a more compassionate and evidence-based approach to substance use. While systemic change is an ongoing effort, reports of reduced overdose fatalities reinforce the importance of continuing harm reduction initiatives.As the IOAPI subcommittee put it: “If this campaign saves just one person, we’ve succeeded.”
To learn more or access resources, visit: InghamHarmReduction.org/support
