Facts and expert advice remain central to public health communication, but they now compete with memes, influencers and a relentless flow of online content. Anja Gorenc, a public health communication specialist at Slovenia’s National Institute of Public Health, discusses why reaching younger audiences requires a new approach.
For decades, public health communication has relied heavily on facts, statistics, and expert authority. But in today’s digital environment — especially when communicating with younger audiences — information alone is rarely enough to inspire action.
Young people are not only exposed to enormous amounts of content every day; they are also constantly evaluating whether communication feels authentic, emotionally relevant, and socially meaningful. In this landscape, public health messaging competes not only with misinformation, but with entertainment culture, influencers, algorithms, and the speed of social media itself.
This challenge became particularly evident in Slovenia in 2024, when the national vaccination programme was expanded to include free human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination for everyone up to the age of 26. The policy change removed financial barriers, but one crucial question remained: would young people actually choose vaccination? The answer depended not only on healthcare access, but also on communication.
At the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ), we realised that traditional institutional messaging alone would not be enough to reach a generation shaped by digital culture. We needed a different approach — one that moved beyond medical terminology and fear-based narratives towards something more emotionally resonant, visually engaging, and socially relevant.
This became the foundation of the national campaign Share Love, Not Disease.
From medical recommendation to social meaning
HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections worldwide and a major cause of several cancers in both women and men.
In Slovenia, around 200 people develop HPV-related cancers every year, while approximately 1,500 women undergo surgical treatment annually due to precancerous cervical lesions. Despite the proven safety and effectiveness of HPV vaccination, uptake remains below desired levels, particularly among 12-year-olds — the age at which HPV vaccination is considered most effective.
One of the biggest communication challenges around HPV is perception. Young adults often do not perceive themselves as vulnerable. HPV-related diseases feel distant, abstract, or “something that happens to other people”. At the same time, vaccination communication can easily become overly clinical, moralising, or fear-driven — approaches that younger audiences tend to reject quickly.
Instead of focusing on disease and risk alone, the campaign reframed vaccination through a positive emotional narrative: care, connection, and responsibility toward oneself and others.
The slogan Share Love, Not Disease intentionally used the language and visual culture familiar to Generation Z. Rather than traditional healthcare imagery, the campaign adopted bold colours, playful design elements, and contemporary digital aesthetics. The now widely recognisable “Gen Z heart” symbol became a central visual motif representing self-care, prevention, and positive relationships.
Importantly, the campaign was not created only for young people, but also with them.
The slogan itself originated through a collaboration with students of communication science from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana. Medical students later became key campaign ambassadors, producing short-form social media videos and acting as peer messengers. This peer-to-peer approach proved critical for credibility and engagement.
Young audiences are highly sensitive to tone and authenticity. They quickly recognise communication that feels institutional or disconnected from their lived experience. Peer voices helped bridge that gap.
Communication connected directly to action
One of the campaign’s most important strategic decisions was linking communication directly with concrete vaccination opportunities.
Too often, public health campaigns successfully raise awareness but fail to translate motivation into action. We wanted to reduce not only informational, but also practical barriers.
On 4 March 2025, coinciding with International HPV Awareness Day, NIJZ coordinated the first nationwide HPV vaccination action for young adults (15-26 years of age), involving university health centres and community health centres across Slovenia. Communication materials were synchronised with appointment systems, vaccination schedules, university channels, and student organisations.
NIJZ created campaign toolkit, which included posters, infographics, social media templates, short videos, website materials, and media content that partners could immediately adapt and share. Universities, health centres, and student organisations amplified messages through their own trusted channels, extending the campaign far beyond NIJZ’s institutional reach.
Social media played a central role
Platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, and LinkedIn were used not only for visibility, but for storytelling. Short-form videos featuring medical students presenting “facts every young person should know about HPV” performed especially well because they combined credibility with the fast, visually driven communication style native to digital platforms.
This reflects a broader lesson for public health communication today: audiences no longer simply consume information. They experience communication emotionally, socially, and visually. Public health institutions should adapt to this reality.
A low-budget campaign with measurable impact
What makes the Share Love, Not Disease campaign particularly important is that its impact was achieved with extremely limited financial resources.
As the campaign targeted young people, we focused primarily on disseminating information and promoting the campaign through social media channels. With a budget of approximately €700, much of the campaign’s reach was achieved through partnerships, coordinated communication efforts, and organic social media amplification. Nevertheless, the results were substantial.
In three vaccination days organised so far under the Share Love, Not Disease campaign, more than 1,000 young people received the HPV vaccine. But the campaign’s impact extended far beyond the vaccination days themselves. In the month following the first campaign, HPV vaccination uptake increased by 48% compared to the same period the previous year, among the primary target group aged 15–26, vaccination uptake increased by 67%. Similar trends were observed after subsequent campaign waves.
The campaign also generated broader societal effects. Vaccination increased significantly even in older age groups, suggesting that visibility and public discussion extended beyond the intended audience. National HPV vaccine issuance increased by 32% during the first campaign period.
Equally important was the cultural shift the campaign initiated within public health communication itself.
Traditionally, vaccination communication often relies on one-way information delivery: institutions produce messages, audiences receive them. But digital culture operates differently. Communication today is participatory, networked, and emotionally driven. That is why we decided to build trust through peers, communities, creators, and shared experiences.
The success of Share Love, Not Disease demonstrated that public health communication cannot rely solely on scientific accuracy — although scientific accuracy remains essential. Information must also feel relevant, human, shareable, and emotionally meaningful.
Public health communication in the age of digital culture
Across Europe, public health institutions face growing challenges: declining trust, misinformation ecosystems, fragmented audiences, and communication fatigue. Younger generations especially consume health information in radically different ways than previous generations.
This requires a broader shift in how institutions think about communication. The future of public health communication will depend not only on what we communicate, but on how deeply we understand the cultures, emotions, and digital environments in which people make decisions.
The Share Love, Not Disease campaign was ultimately about much more than HPV vaccination. It was an attempt to rethink how public health speaks to younger generations — not from above, but alongside them. And perhaps that is the most important lesson of all.
In focus
Key takeaways for a successful public health communications campaign:
1. Use positive emotions, not fear – focus on care, connection, and meaning.
2. Co-create with young people – involve them in shaping messages.
3. Use peer voices – trust grows when messages come from relatable people.
4. Adapt to digital culture – short-form, visual, platform-native content works best.
5. Link message to action – make the next step easy and immediate.
Want to learn more?
Discover more about this campaign by clicking the link below.
