WARREN, N.J. — GSK continues to work closely with public health partners like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to prevent and prepare for the spread of the flu for the 2021-2022 season.
“Every year, GSK works closely with public health partners like the CDC to prevent and prepare for the spread of the flu,” says GSK Consumer Healthcare marketing lead Sameer Rabbani. “According to the CDC, annual influenza vaccination is the best way to help protect people 6 months old and older against the flu. With the overlap of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and cold and flu season, GSK expects to distribute more doses than any previous influenza season, with a record supply of more than 50 million doses of the flu vaccine for the 2021-2022 season to the U.S. market,” he adds.
Rabbani says for over 40 years Theraflu has been a leading brand of over-the-counter medicines that provide fast and powerful relief for the worst cold and flu symptoms, like sneezing, coughing and nasal congestion. “This cold and flu season, we aimed to provide relief in a new way through our latest initiative to help those who are financially or logistically unable to take a sick day. Because we believe that taking time to rest and recover should be a right, not a privilege, we launched a campaign to address and help alleviate access barriers,” he explains.
“For the 2021-2022 cold and flu season, we launched our Rest & Recover campaign to raise awareness of the access barriers and racial stigmas around sick leave. To address many Americans’ struggle to take a sick day, we partnered with Good+Foundation to create the Rest & Recover Fund, a micro-grant program designed to help offset 1,000 unpaid sick days for those who need it most — primarily parents, particularly Black and Latina moms. These efforts are backed by our Temperature Check Report, a survey of 2,000 working Americans designed to identify the pain points and barriers around sick leave. The findings revealed that 64% of polled employees said taking time off is too much of a financial burden and that Black and Latina women showed an inequity when it comes to accessing sick time.”
More information about Theraflu’s efforts to provide relief with this initiative is available at Theraflu.com/RightToRecover.
Rabbani also notes that social media has been a valuable resource. “Through social media monitoring, GSK Consumer Health has previously been able to gauge consumer sentiment and commentary surrounding cold and flu symptoms, providing insight for our marketing teams on how we can best serve our consumers. Through this practice, we were made hyper-aware of consumer sentiment around unpaid sick leave. Ultimately, this inspired us to take a deeper look into the issue through our 2021 Temperature Check Report, which allowed us to capture validated insights on unpaid sick day challenges and take action to address barriers.
“Our Rest & Recover campaign has added another layer to this with the support of trusted influencers who spoke on their own experiences regarding unpaid sick leave access barriers. Through these posts, under the hashtags #RestandRecoverFund and #RestandRecoverDay, we were able to see a great deal of commentary from followers sharing their own experiences with the difficulties and hurdles around taking a sick day when feeling under the weather — further fueling our need to amplify this cause and address the issue at hand,” he concludes.
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