ARKids First

Studies show health behaviors of at-risk populations tends toward reactionary, acute care rather than prevention or wellness care. Because dental health is an indicator of overall health in children, the client wanted a promotion that focused specifically on the importance of regular dental checkups for kids, and to encourage Arkansas families with ARKids-enrolled children to actually use their coverage for regular dental checkups, instead of waiting until something was wrong to see a dentist.

We used secondary research data from the Arkansas HEDIS Report (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) to review dental checkup rates in all 75 counties in Arkansas. Our review indicated that nearly 40 percent of ARKids First-enrolled children had not visited a dentist in the previous year. The HEDIS data review allowed us to rank the Arkansas counties with the lowest dental checkup utilization rates. We used this data to develop a targeted outreach campaign for 14 of the counties with the lowest pediatric dental checkup rates.

Additional secondary research gained from Arkansas Department of Health data indicated that in many lower socioeconomic households, the chief method by which parents received routine health information was when it came from their child’s school or when their children received required school immunizations at the local health department. Our goal was to develop a messaging strategy, guided by our research, focused on outreach to ARKids-enrolled families in those 14 lowest-ranked counties.

Traditionally ARKids has used TV and radio advertising, but the client budget could not accommodate that this year, so we had to get a little more creative with our promotion.

• ARKids First Toothbrushes – We ordered 36,000 toothbrushes imprinted with the ARKids toll-free phone number and attached them to “SMILING Arkansas” cards.

• SMILE card – We designed simple cards with the headline “SMILING Arkansas” and hand-assembled the card + toothbrush combination. The cards included simple facts for parents about the importance of regular checkups with the dentist and the fact that ARKids coverage paid for visits twice a year. The call-to-action was to visit the ARKids First website, find a dentist in the community and schedule a dental checkup for their child.

• Distribution plan – The distribution plan included shipping a package of toothbrushes and SMILE cards to each school nurse prior to National Children’s Dental Health Month. Each package included an instruction letter for the nurses and thanked them for participating in the campaign.

• Social media content – We supported the campaign with 30-days of social media content created for posting on DHS’s social media channels.

• Post-campaign surveys – We emailed an 8-question survey to all of the school nurses, pre-K program directors and the local health unit partners in the month following the campaign to assess the perceived educational value of the SMILING campaign.