Thurston County Public Health & Social Services is furthering its overdose prevention campaign by purchasing three video billboard advertising spaces in the county.
The Thurston County Board of Commissioners approved the purchases Tuesday for three months of campaign messaging in the amount of $33,000, an average of $11,000 for each billboard with Pacific Outdoor Advertising.
The messages will be placed on billboards located on U.S. Highway 101 and Old Highway 99, including a 10-foot-by-30-foot space near Tumwater Boulevard and 14-foot-by-48-foot spaces near Steamboat Island Road Northwest and state Route 108.
The health department is launching multiple local overdose prevention campaigns, which contain messaging to promote awareness of naloxone and where to obtain it, how to recognize and respond to an overdose, and other related information. This messaging is adapted from Health Care Authority's Friends for Life overdose prevention campaign, and all campaign materials align with the goals and strategies in the Thurston County Opioid Response Plan.
Dr. Jennifer Freiheit, director of county public health and social services, told the commissioners last week that the billboard locations were chosen as they have the best viewership.
There is an additional video billboard space in Thurston County on state Route 510 that the county is utilizing for overdose prevention messaging through a different company.
According to the sole source justification or waiver form included in the board’s agenda packet, the public health and social services team reached out to three entities that offer video billboards and heard back from two of them. Pacific Outdoor was the only vendor that operated video billboards along the state highways that have video capability and are in the county.
