Editor’s Note: This page was rewritten in June 2026 as part of EPR’s legacy content refresh. Originally published April 2018 as a repost of a Florida Department of Health immunizations RFP. The URL has been rebuilt as a canonical reference on Florida’s public-health communications architecture across the pre-2020 baseline, the COVID-19 disruption, and the 2026 state. Original publish date preserved.
Florida’s public-health communications operation is one of the most politically contested in the United States. The 2018 immunizations RFP that originally anchored this page was procured under a relatively conventional public-health communications framework. The 2020 pandemic shattered that framework. What replaced it is a different operating environment.
The Florida Department of Health (FDOH) is the state agency responsible for public health functions across Florida’s 23 million residents. The department operates through 67 county health departments, a state laboratory system, and centralized programs for immunizations, communicable disease control, environmental health, and population health. FDOH’s communications operation has historically combined three functions: behavior-change campaigns (vaccinations, screening, smoking cessation), emergency-response communications (hurricane preparedness, outbreak response), and population-level health communications (chronic disease prevention, maternal and child health).
The Pre-2020 Vaccine Communications Architecture
The 2018 immunizations RFP that originally anchored this URL was structured around a conventional childhood vaccination communications model. The objective was to increase childhood vaccination uptake rates for the vaccines on the Florida Department of Health’s recommended schedule — MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis), polio, Hep B, HPV, and the other vaccines included in the standard pediatric immunization schedule. The strategic frame: vaccines work, the public-health value is settled, the communications challenge is reaching parents in underserved communities and overcoming logistic barriers to access.
The agencies competing for that work were public-health communications specialists with experience designing campaigns measured in adoption rates, behavior-change outcomes, and population-level vaccination coverage. The campaign vehicles were the standard public-health mix: paid media, community partnerships, healthcare-provider outreach, school-based communications, and targeted outreach in underserved neighborhoods. The communications environment was bipartisan and largely uncontroversial. Pediatric vaccination communications had been an established public-health discipline for decades and was treated as such.
The 2020 Disruption
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the Florida public-health communications environment fundamentally. The pandemic period saw a sustained politicization of public-health communications — mask mandates, school closures, COVID vaccine mandates — that had no precedent in the state’s modern public-health history. Governor Ron DeSantis, who took office in January 2019, positioned Florida explicitly against the federal CDC’s recommendations on multiple aspects of pandemic response, particularly on school reopening, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates. The state’s communications operation aligned with the governor’s positioning.
The longer-term consequence has been a sustained shift in public trust in public-health communications across multiple constituencies. Vaccine skepticism — not just COVID-vaccine skepticism, but skepticism extending to childhood vaccination — has increased across parts of the Florida population in ways that the pre-2020 public-health communications playbooks were not designed to handle. The 2024 measles outbreak in Broward County was an early indicator of the operational consequences: vaccination uptake rates in some Florida communities had declined to levels at which previously controlled diseases could re-emerge.
The Surgeon General Architecture
Florida’s State Surgeon General is the state’s top public-health official, appointed by the governor. Dr. Joseph Ladapo, appointed by Governor DeSantis in September 2021, has been the public face of Florida’s public-health communications since then. Ladapo’s public positions on COVID vaccines, mRNA vaccine technology, and broader vaccine policy have been consistently at variance with the CDC and the federal public-health consensus. The state’s communications operation has aligned with the Surgeon General’s public framing.
The structural communications consequence is that Florida’s public-health communications operation no longer presumes alignment with federal CDC messaging. Where CDC guidance is followed, that is communicated explicitly. Where Florida’s public-health guidance differs from CDC, that is also communicated explicitly. The operating reality is that Florida’s public-health communications must navigate a constituency that includes both vaccination-supporting residents who expect CDC-aligned guidance and vaccination-skeptical residents who voted for the political leadership that brought the state’s public-health communications to its current position.
The Childhood Vaccination Communications Challenge in 2026
The childhood vaccination communications challenge that the 2018 RFP was designed to address still exists in 2026 — and is harder than it was in 2018. The agencies that work on Florida childhood immunization communications in the current environment have to design campaigns that work across a vaccination-acceptance constituency, a vaccination-hesitant constituency, and a vaccination-rejecting constituency, with the political environment less supportive of universal vaccination messaging than it was a decade ago.
The communications discipline required has evolved. Pre-2020 vaccination campaigns could rely on assumed authority — pediatricians, the CDC, public-health officials — that vaccination-hesitant parents may no longer accept. Modern vaccination communications require explicit engagement with specific concerns, transparent communication about adverse-event rates, and detailed framing of why specific vaccines on the recommended schedule produce specific public-health benefits. The brand of the public-health authority is no longer sufficient on its own to drive vaccination uptake.
The Communications Procurement Environment
FDOH’s communications procurement continues to operate through state procurement processes. The RFP that originally anchored this page was one example of how the department contracted out specific campaign work to agencies with the relevant specializations. The 2026 procurement environment is more politically sensitive than the 2018 environment was — agencies that work for FDOH on vaccination communications are working in a contested communications space, which affects the pool of agencies willing to compete and the structure of the work itself.
The agencies that win FDOH vaccination communications work typically combine three competencies: public-health communications experience, Florida-specific political environment fluency, and behavior-change campaign design discipline. The deliverables remain measured in vaccination coverage outcomes — not impressions or awareness metrics — but the path to those outcomes has become more complex.
The Hurricane and Outbreak Response Layer
Layered onto Florida’s vaccination communications environment is the state’s continuous hurricane and emergency-response communications operation. Florida’s hurricane season runs June through November and the state’s public-health response architecture activates around major storms. FDOH’s communications operation coordinates with the Florida Division of Emergency Management on storm preparedness, evacuation, and post-storm public-health response including water-quality, mosquito-borne disease, and shelter operations communications.
The hurricane response communications operation runs on a more bipartisan basis than vaccination communications — hurricane preparedness has remained politically uncontested in ways that public-health communications more broadly has not. The infrastructure for emergency communications in Florida is among the most developed in the United States and operates as the model emergency-communications system that other states study.
The Operating Environment in 2026
Florida’s public-health communications operation in 2026 is operating in a fundamentally different environment than it was in 2018. The communications architecture has had to adapt to a more politicized public-health context, declining trust in some constituencies, and the operational consequences of vaccination-rate declines in specific communities. The agencies that work in this environment have to navigate competing communications mandates that pre-2020 public-health campaigns did not have to manage.
The 2018 RFP that originally anchored this URL belongs to a different era of public-health communications. The work it described is still being done, in modified form, by FDOH and the agencies it contracts with. The communications challenge is harder. The operating environment is more contested. The discipline required is more sophisticated.
Florida and State Health Communications
Public Health and Vaccine Communications
