Flu: What You Can Do

Massachusetts Statewide Home Flu Care Campaign

Flu: What You Can Do – Caring for People at Home

This booklet and many other resources are available here …

From the material Campaigning Objectives and Components:

The primary objectives of the campaign are to:

Increase knowledge regarding the similarities and differences between seasonal and pandemic flu;

Increase knowledge about how to prevent transmission of flu in the home and community setting;

Provide information and tools to care for persons with seasonal and pandemic flu at home;

Decrease surge on the medical system by educating the public about symptoms that indicate when to seek medical advice and when to seek medical care; and

Reinforce the message that caring for a family member, or someone you live with, during a pandemic will be very similar to caring for someone during each regular flu season.

The initiative includes two major components: 

1. State-wide Distribution of Educational Materials (booklet and video)
   The booklet is a resource for people during both seasonal flu and pandemic flu, and emphasizes the steps that individuals can take to be prepared to care for a loved one at home – and when to seek medical advice.  The 20-minute video presents a summary of the key information presented in the booklet and can be played in office waiting rooms, played during a health class or educational presentation, etc.
2.  Implementation of Community Outreach and Education
   Public education and community outreach are essential to this campaign. The goal of this component is to recruit and train a core group of local public health professionals, community health center educators, school nurses, Medical Reserve Corp volunteers and others. These “education team” members will be willing to conduct outreach, organize and implement educational presentations within their organization or in their community specifically to support the state-wide Flu Care at Home initiative.

Please visit the Local Public Health Training Institute of Massachusetts to find dates and locations of training sessions. The URL is: www.masslocalinstitute.org