(WASHINGTON, DC) — The Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) Educational Foundation and Family Dollar today announced the launch of a program to help Family Dollar shoppers make informed, educated choices about choosing and using over-the-counter (OTC) products and dietary supplements.
The program, “Health In Hand”, is the CHPA Educational Foundation’s first-ever collaboration of this scale to help build confidence and understanding during shoppers’ self-selection process, especially for those living in underserved or rural communities and community members who may have low health literacy.
Through educational QR codes placed on Family Dollar’s in-store OTC category wayfinding strips, in all 8,000 stores, shoppers will be directed to custom landing pages on HealthInHand.org, the CHPA Educational Foundation’s official online destination and go-to resource for consumers to learn more about self-care categories, active ingredients, and specific products. The information on Health In Hand is ingredient-based to help customers better understand what self-care products may be right for them.
By scanning the QR code with their mobile phones, shoppers can access information at their fingertips and feel empowered to make safe, informed decisions about choosing and using self-care products. The first two Family Dollar categories to showcase the educational QR codes are digestive health and pain management, which were placed in stores the first week of August. Additional categories launching later in the year will include cough/cold/flu and allergy.
“No decisions are more personal than those we make about our health,” said Mary Leonard, Executive Director of CHPA’s Educational Foundation. “The Foundation has a unique opportunity to serve as an educational resource for Family Dollar’s customers to promote the safe use of self-care products and support better health outcomes. Knowing that QR Code technology is a preferred way for consumers to access information, we are solving a need to provide access to Health In Hand’s expert advice and dynamic content directly from Family Dollar’s OTC aisles. We are excited about this first execution and building future self-care educational initiatives.”
“We are pleased to be the first retailer to participate in the CHPA’s Health in Hand initiative,” said Kyle Price, Vice President of Merchandising for Family Dollar. “This program enables us to deepen our connection with our shoppers as they make important and informed purchase decisions to take care of themselves and their loved ones. These new resources, combined with our refreshed product assortment and our everyday low prices, create an absolute win-win for our customers.”
With a concentrated focus on advancing self-care literacy among vulnerable communities, the CHPA Educational Foundation commissioned research in 2021 on educational interventions to support low health literacy populations. Learnings from the research include providing health information in both English and Spanish that can be quickly accessed and easily interpreted. Colorful graphics and iconography also ranked high among participants, as well as the use of a QR code to access information quickly and efficiently. This collaboration with Family Dollar aims to build shopper self-care product knowledge through QR codes on wayfinding strips and custom landing pages on HealthInHand.org.
The CHPA Educational Foundation believes retailers like Family Dollar have a tremendous opportunity, and Health In Hand provides their shoppers with information to help them make educated decisions regarding their health, and provides a solution to drive shopper awareness when selecting self-care products from the shelf, beginning with the pain management and digestive health categories.
