One of my biggest projects with the American Association of Clinical Endcrinologists is coordinating our national Thyroid Awareness Month campaign in January, now in its eighteenth year. I was fortunate to inherit the project in the fall when the AACE leadership was open to making significant changes to the program, so my co-workers and I developed a strategic plan to create a new brand for thyroid awareness. The process was much more involved than a single sentence can express, but ultimately we created a new website www.ThyroidAwareness.com and a blue paisley ribbon to become the new lasting symbol for thyroid awareness. The pink breast cancer ribbon was started in a similar fashion only 20 years ago, and we're optimistic this campaign will grow over time.
What is the thyroid, you ask? I had to pose the same question at the beginning. In a nutshell, the thyroid is a small butterfly-shaped gland in your neck that creates thyroid hormone, which regulates your metabolism and impacts how every other organ in your body operates. Common thyroid problems are producing too much or too little hormone (hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism, respectively), or structural problems like a goiter or nodule, which are sometimes cancerous.
But here's the surprising thing - as many as one in ten people suffer from a thyroid disorder, although more than half don't know it. You can read an article I wrote for our patient magazine here and learn more. Symptoms, conditions, and treatments are also explained on our website www.ThyroidAwareness.com. And, you won't want to miss this adorable :60 video that tells you more about your thyroid:
The campaign has included a variety of components that have kept us very busy. They have included things like securing grant funding, publishing half a million copies of our magazine, developing the new blue paisley brand, creating a website, designing and distributing merchandise, building parternships with other organizations, a social media campaign (check out @TheAACE and www.facebook.com/TheAACE), a series of press releases, video public service announcements, national media interviews, health fairs, physician spokespeople, AACE member communications, and more.
Of course the results haven't been perfect, but I have been very pleased with the overall success of the campaign. One of our goals at the beginning was to reach 500 million people with the thyroid message, and although our media matrix data is still coming in, I'm optimistic we will reach that goal. I'm extremely grateful to have worked on this project with such a great team in the AACE Public Relations Department (Bryan, Sarah, and Laura - you are the best!) and am looking forward to building on this foundation next year and beyond.
In a future post I will tell you about my travels to Washington, DC, and New York City for the campaign, but for now I give you these departing words:
If your thyroid isn't working properly, neither are you!
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