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Liz Foote Maui Jan 3, 2021 1:18 am

Last month, the Social Marketing Association of North America sent a letter to the Biden Harris coronavirus advisory board co-chairs (Dr. David Kessler, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, and Dr. Vivek Murthy) urging them to include individuals with behavioral science and social marketing expertise. You can see the letter and read more about the effort on SMANA’s website.

SMANA is asking us to help by contacting the co-chairs and voicing our support. Their emails and twitter handles are in the post on SMANA’s website and pasted in below.

I am also sending the letter to my state’s senators, and I will note that the WHO coronavirus advisory board includes people with this expertise, and thanks to the social marketing listserve we have been getting a rundown of other countries that have done the same – so far we know of Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the UK.

A few days ago the Biden Harris coronavirus advisory group announced that some new members were added, which added communications expertise to this group. Surprisingly, communications had been omitted up to then. Back in November (shortly after the advisory board was first announced) I was glad to see this editorial in The Hill by Dr. Craig Lefebvre and Glen Nowak, “Put the science into COVID communications.” I’d love to see something similar come together for behavioral science and social marketing.

Biden Harris COVID-19 Response Team co-chairs:

David Kessler:
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @DavidAKesslerMD

Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @DrNunezSmith

Dr. Vivek Murthy
email: [email protected]
Twitter: @vivek_murthy