Don’t Mess With Mercury: A Social Media Tool Kit for Environmental Health Practitioners, School Administrators, and Youth

Exposure to elemental mercury from spills or improper use or clean-up can lead to central nervous system effects and other health effects. Clean-up and disposal can also be very expensive. Many mercury spills occur because youth find mercury, think it is “cool,” play with it, share it with friends and contaminate their houses and schools when it is spilled. Public health and emergency response workers are frequently called upon to educate students, parents, teachers, and school administrators about spill prevention and mitigation measures.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has developed a suite of tools to reach these unique audiences including: a video game, 30-second animated video public service announcement in English and Spanish, interactive human body illustration, fact sheets for teachers and parents, and other resources. The tools, available on the redesigned ATSDR web site titled "Don’t Mess With Mercury", can be used at schools, and at home.

The presenters will introduce the tools, discuss how examples from ATSDR’s responses to mercury spills were used to create targeted messages for youth in the development of the public service announcement, and share ways to incorporate them into health education activities in your community. Finally, while the tools have been well received by public health and response workers, presenters will discuss challenges in measuring the success of these communication interventions, and distribution issues and options for the target audiences.