Introduction

Conducting an accurate census or survey requires active public participation. Without complete participation from all population segments, particularly among those who are hard to count, results will be skewed and not reflect the resident population’s reality. “Hard-to-count” populations are those who are less likely to participate than others in a national census or survey. Hard-to-count populations often include immigrants, those who speak a language other than the nation’s dominant language, renters, people or households living in poverty, and people who feel marginalized or abused by the prevailing society or government (see Chapter 1 in this volume). This chapter discusses how an active public engagement campaign through grass-roots community organizations can ignite participation among those least likely to participate.

Why a grass-roots campaign is critical

According to Rice and Atkin (2013), public communication campaigns are defined as purposive attempts to inform or influence behaviors of large audiences within a given time period using an organized set of communication activities and featuring an array of mediated messages in multiple channels to produce noncommercial benefits to individuals and society. In assessing the impact of public communication campaigns, they note that most experts conclude that such campaigns tend to have a modest rather than strong impact, notably on the health behaviors. There can be a multitude of factors that contribute to the limited impact of these campaigns. For example, Rice and Atkin suggest meager dissemination budgets, unsophisticated application of theory and models, poorly conceived strategic approaches, and promoting complex or difficult behaviors are among the key contributors. They also note that the difficult task of targeting resistant audience segments can be a significant factor. When considering the challenges of reaching hard-to-count population segments in the context of a census public communication campaign, this latter point certainly is a critical consideration, and for this reason alone, it makes sense to have a strong focus on grass-roots efforts.