Public Education Update

COMING SOON

Fall Virtual Symposium: Emerging Trends in Optometry

This year's Fall Symposium conference will be held virtually, so be sure to take this opportunity to engage with speakers and colleagues over presentations on engaging topics in Optometry. The conference will be FREE for BCDO members, and attendees will be able to gain COPE-accredited CE credits. An in-person evening social will also be held on Sunday, September 24 as part of the Fall Symposium weekend- be sure to mark your calendars!

Fall Virtual Symposium Date: Sunday, September 25, 2022 Location: Virtual

Fall Symposium Evening Social Date: Saturday, September 24, 2022 Location: To be announced

Please stay tuned for more details!

COMING SOON

2023 BCDO ANNUAL CONFERENCE & OPTOFAIR

BC Doctors of Optometry’s 2023 Annual Conference & OPTOFAIR is a three-day continuing education, networking and professional development event for doctors of optometry and optometric staff. This is your opportunity to gain valuable and relevant insight and education into the optometric field.

Date: Friday, May 12 – Sunday, May 14, 2023 Location: Hyatt Regency Vancouver, 655 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC

Please stay tuned for more details!

Public Education Update

By BC Doctors of Optometry and Edelman

Since spring of 2020, BCDO has helped British Columbians navigate their eye health against the backdrop of a worldwide pandemic. Our PR and communications campaigns continued to deliver the message that eye health is a crucial component of overall health especially during a pandemic and available to British Columbians safely in person and through Telehealth. As British Columbia moves to remove almost all restrictions, BCDO’s 2022 public education campaign is shifting from the pandemic focus to a “reset” and will refocus on the role of Doctors of Optometry. Doctors of Optometry are health professionals trained to examine, diagnose, treat and prevent diseases and disorders of the eyes and visual system. A Doctor of Optometry specializes in managing every aspect of your eye health. However, British Columbians are not necessarily aware of, or think about, Doctors of Optometry as their first-stop for urgent issues associated with eye health. BCDO’s public awareness strategy for 2022 will focus on increasing awareness of Doctors of

Optometry as primary health care providers for eye health and position them as a core part of British Columbians’ personal, primary healthcare teams.

Goals:

• Establish optometrists as the authoritative voice and as the primary care provider of choice in British Columbia for eye health. • Continue to drive awareness of routine eye health and the importance of comprehensive eye exams.

Campaign theme: “You’ve only got one pair of eyes”

As British Columbians continue to face down challenges, whether they are the ongoing impacts of the pandemic or world events, we decided to take a personable, sensible and sensitive approach to create the 2022 concept, which features the faces of people from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, genders, etc. This campaign is intensely focused on the eyes, reminding us we only have one pair of eyes and when we need urgent eye care our Doctor of Optometry must be our first call.

By including “call-to action” language, we don’t just raise awareness, but also lead our audience to take action.

Audience

From the 2021 campaign, we found that British Columbians between 25-54 were most engaged in our campaign and we found the strongest engagement among users from Vancouver and Surrey. To maximize the efficiency of the campaign and our budget, we decided to target this demographic, which is broken into two sub-categories: Adults 25-54 and Parents with children aged 4-18, in 2022. We will continue targeting at a provincial level so as to not exclude users based on their location.

Campaign Overview