httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMXp5RKton0
By Sofia Redford and Jacqui Mills
It’s not often these days that we have the opportunity to be out on the street advocating for the causes for which we work. High level meetings and international conference calls, yes—but getting out to talk with people during Washington, DC’s morning rush hour, no. As part of this year’s World Pneumonia Day (WPD) efforts, we volunteered with one of the many organizations holding WPD events around the world. Here in DC, one WPD effort involved raising awareness at metro transit stations throughout the nation’s capital. We gathered at 6:45AM to meet with other volunteers before heading out in smaller teams, composed of a WPD expert, blue spandex-clad PneumoniaFighters!, and volunteers.
Our task today was to raise awareness that pneumonia is the #1 killer of children under 5. We were surprised to find that very few people knew about the heavy burden caused by this disease. Most people that we talked to were surprised, one joked “I thought only old people like me got that,” while others shared personal stories. At one metro stop a Turkish woman shared that her older sister had died due to pneumonia. This woman was born a year after her sister’s death and was given the same name as her late sister. Many others commented that a family member or they themselves have had pneumonia.
What was most surprising was the warm reception by people busy on their way to work on this Friday morning. Of course, the blue spandex unitard-wearing dancers drew a lot of attention, but people were eager to receive material and ask questions. We didn’t have to pick up a single discarded postcard and actually ran out of materials at several points during the morning. Many people also asked how they could get involved, which is easy to do–visit www.worldpneumoniaday.org to learn more about the devastating toll of pneumonia and send a PneumoniaGram to your nation’s leader urging them to make pneumonia prevention a priority.
Sofia Redford works in the Vaccine Advocacy and Education program at the Sabin Vaccine Institute. She got her MPH from the Boston University School of Public Health and is a new resident to the DC area.
Jacqui Mills is the program coordinator for the new Coalition against Typhoid (CaT) secretariat at the Sabin Vaccine Institute. She recently graduated with an MPP from the Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy.
