Case Study: Houston Health Department improves vaccine access and equitable outreach with Syntasa

The Houston Health Department improved COVID vaccination by analyzing digital behavior to increase access and outreach across the city

The Houston Health Department, serving the fourth-most populous city in the U.S., faced the challenge of understanding and addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy across its diverse communities to ensure equitable distribution. To improve outreach and increase vaccination rates, they partnered with vendor Syntasa to build a data-driven solution that could track public sentiment at a hyper-local level.

Syntasa implemented a solution using its software on the Google Cloud Platform to create production-grade data pipelines and two main dashboards: a Sentiment Analytics Dashboard and a Narrative Dashboard. These tools ingested and analyzed data from sources like health department surveys, social media, and public datasets to provide zip-code level insights. The results enabled the health department to identify target opportunity populations, tailor outreach campaigns, and drive vaccinations, while also creating a replicable platform for future public health initiatives.

Houston Health Department

Stephen L. Williams

Director