Irish Cancer Society recognised for social media engagement on tobacco with young people at Irish Healthcare Awards 2014

The Irish Cancer Society has been awarded the prize for ‘Best Use of Social Media’ for its youth smoking prevention campaign X-HALE at the Irish Healthcare Awards 2014, which was held in the Shelbourne Hotel last night. The Society also received a commendation for ‘Best Patient Education Project – Pharmaceutical’ for its Lung Cancer Awareness Campaign which it ran in partnership with Eli Lilly.

The Society was recognised in the area of social media for the X-HALE campaign, a youth smoking prevention campaign. The initiative aims to empower young people to create awareness around the issue of smoking in their own communities through the use of social media and online sharing platforms. The Society provides funding to youth groups and organisations which supports training and equipment for the groups to create short films around the issue of smoking. The visual smoking prevention messages are then uploaded and shared on the Society’s YouTube channel.

Over 77,000 people have watched the films devised by the youth groups since 2011 and in total 90 youth groups nationwide have taken part to date. Youth groups are driven to share their films on social media in order to compete for the ‘Online Award’ at the X-HALE Film Festival, an annual showcase event for the film entries. The youth group which receives the most online views for its film is awarded the prize for the ‘Online Award’ at the annual Festival. In addition to the engagement on YouTube, the X-HALE films, events and news are also shared through the Irish Cancer Society’s X-HALE Facebook page.

Kevin O’Hagan, Health Promotion Manager at the Irish Cancer Society said: “We are thrilled to accept the award for ‘Best Use of Social Media’ at the Irish Healthcare Awards. Social Media is an integral part of our X-HALE initiative as we are engaging with young people who are all digital natives and hugely active on social media. X-HALE aims to prevent young people from starting to smoke through the use of social media and online sharing platforms. Young people are now exposing the reality of smoking and the marketing tactics of the tobacco industry and they are using social media to do so.”

The Society was also commended in the category for ‘Best Patient Education Project – Pharmaceutical’ for its Lung Cancer Awareness Month campaign which was implemented in partnership with Eli Lilly. The campaign incorporated Public Relations and Advertising over a three year period each January, as well as the production of a Look After Your Lungs Magazine and a Lung Cancer information leaflet which was distributed in target communities and via the Irish Daily Star.

The Irish Cancer Society implements national awareness programmes and promotes healthy lifestyles with a view to educating the public about early detection and reducing the risk of cancer. Visit www.cancer to find out more.