Untitled. . . (that title seems to work for songwriters when they can't think of a good one)

I agree with the other girls that the last few weeks have been especially educational, not only with information but also with experience. In regards to our group's project, I was surprised by how much energy, creativity, flexibility, and (ultimately) time was required to produce an original health message for our target audience. Of course, if we had a budget to work with, the process may have been a little easier and certainly would have produced a better quality product in the end, but it is clearly a challenging task. I wonder just what end product we could have developed if we had a budget or equipment/software to produce the quality video message we had envisioned. Had things been different, I would have liked to have been able to add our designed logos (i.e., "1N2-which-1RU?", "Ask...") to the actual video messages. I would like to hear feedback from our classmates about the effectiveness of the logos specifically, but I don't the connection between the logos and the video messages was made.

One of the biggest lessons I learned from the experience of Project #2 was the results of testing our messages. Although our hypotheses were pretty accurate, the comments and suggestions made by our target audience "testors" provided perspectives we hadn't considered during the development and production of the messages. I recognize as a Caucasian female that I repeatedly fail to highlight cultural relevance - I am actually quite embarassed by this realization about myself. :( In my opinion, this was the most important comment made by one of our testors. It helped to keep it in perspective for me.

On the other hand, the reason I agreed to serve as the person giving the testimonial was mainly because my own personal experience related closely to that of the target audience. My story required only minor tweaking and tailoring to better fit the specific segment that "got a ring on it." It made sense for me to give the testimony, regardless of my race, because the experience HAD actually happened to me. Maybe it was too scripted? Maybe it didn't come across as genuine-enough? I don't know - but doesn't the audience prefer a TRUE story vs. one that is totally fabricated? It's interesting to think how a viewer can feel a disconnect with the individual in the testimony based on one factor of difference over a feeling of connection due to several factors of similarity. It's a very fascinating, and yet, a very real phenomenon that I cannot ignore.

The final blog Post ...

The fourth module provided a quick overview of methods and channels which can be used to disseminate/ introduce a campaign. The two main ones we covered in class were letters to the editor, policy/community support in agenda setting, and the modes (T.V., radio, etc) that can be used. The top three key insights for this module were the marketing concepts that can be applied to public health, agenda setting, and media channels/ advocacy.

Last week I mentioned that I really enjoyed the reading by Grier & Bryant (2005). They explained in a very thorough way the meshing of public relations and public health. More specifically social marketing and it's possible use for public health interventions. This article made me think back to campaigns that had used branding. Such as the truth campaign, VERB, etc. all these campaigns adopted public relations concepts when developing their interventions/ programs.

Our two speakers highlighted agenda setting channels. Our first speaker discussed how we can use media to get our message across. The second speaker discussed agenda setting at a local and global level. I really enjoyed this lecture because agenda setting and community involvement, government, etc. were presented. This presentation put into perspective the role of different entities I could see how the ecological model could be used when discussing this.

Finally, the group presentations from this past week provided examples of the channels we could use to promote campaigns promoting a specific behavior change. I found it interesting that all of the groups had at least one video as their channel. I found the bone marrow and their twitter page and video to be a really good combination of channels. The red bull group and their use of ads was also very good. I felt like that was their ads were good but it might be a good idea to develop a video because a lot of Redbull's advertising of the product is through t.v. commercials. The drunk driving testimonial was really well produced and i also liked the bone marrow's video and the way they used it to empower/ encourage people to want to help those in need of bone marrow. I am excited to see the edits we will all do after we receive feedback. I can't believe that we are going to start the last module this week. The semester has gone by so quickly.

end of module insights

Tonight I am going to try to keep this short and sweet. My top three key insights for this module were:

1) medical and public health experts and organizational communication leadership ought to be prepared to provide informative and interesting messages for the media to disseminate. it's particularly important to be sure that the framing is appropriate and mutually beneficial for the cause and the journalist. sometimes it makes most sense to produce your own media (e.g., letters to the editor).

2) public health could benefit from the full range of marketing (4Ps). Beyond the communication aspect, it seems to me a good bit of this would require policy changes, both at the government (local/state/national) and/or non-government organization (workplace as well as consumer market).

3) producing quality communications material is difficult! this insight comes mostly from the group project presentations. developing good communications requires knowing the target audience as well as a ton of creativity. it also helps to have a skill-set such as video production. the twitter account seemed like the easiest for the non-creative to be able to adapt and implement for a health communication campaign.

-Melissa

Module 4 Summary

Hello all,

I learned a lot from module 4. I would like to summarize the main points I learned from each groups presentation first.

substance abuse: I found it ironic that hey also adapted the Master Card commercial idea as well as created a testimonial. I like their video a lot. It looked well thought out and professional. The video was attention grabbing. I thought the first ad seemed to be a little too simple and used to many slides with costs on them. I would suggest trying to making the video as though it was on a family members life to see if that increased "buy in".

"drop the bull" - energy drinks: I thought the re-segmented group findings were interesting since they varied so much from the original group tested. I thought "drop the bull" was very cleaver and catchy. I was actually a big fan of the picture of the tired student which included the negative side effects of energy drinks. I found it interesting to see it made more people want to drink red bull. They could try to create a series of pictures from high to low energy to illustrate the crash of energy. I would suggest adding stats to make this easier to know how much is too much? Or, what is considered high volume consumption vs low volume consumption.

bone marrow donation: great video. I liked the use of "YOU can" statements. If made it feel approachable and easy to be a part of changing someones life without monetary requests. I would suggest using more images or picture of real people in the video. The twitter account may benefit from having the target audience clearly listed on the home page. After watching their video I want to sign up with the registry.

physical activity: Sam's story was a great way to begin the presentation. I was immediately tuned in. I liked their video. It was very fun and appealing. I would suggest adding a few more funny kid pictures like kids hula hooping or skipping rather than the majority playing sports. I thought it was funny to hear that the kids thought the logo could be a gang symbol or negative message. I think it would be difficult to create an effective message for kids. I think they did a great job addressing the issues the kids brought up.

I also liked the use of presentors for this module. Both guest lecturers lead interesting discussions. I really enjoyed Asher's discussion on public health policy. I liked that he emphasised community envolvement as well as the importance of utilizing research for large scale policy changes. I think over all this was one of my favorite modules. It showed a great variety of what avenues are available for health communications.

In closing, I think all groups have created great products thus far. I look forward to all of the final refined products. It is fun to see each group improve after each step. Good job everyone!

Cody

Week 13 - Global

Guest Lecturer Asher had a very interesting presentation and I really enjoyed the Global perspective he presented to us. I had an idea of how policy worked at the local/ state level but I definitely found the global level interesting. I am interested in working for an organization like WHO, PAHO in the future so learning where they would fit in the global policy model was very informative. I took notes but I would definitely find it helpful if he could upload his slides on blackboard, just a thought.

The readings for this week were interesting and very informative. One particular thing that resonated as I read was from the Grier & Bryant (2005) reading. They discuss how there are not many social marketing courses or even a division within public health departments and that is the case with our School of public health. I believe this course is the only course that touches upon social marketing in detail which is interesting because we will be health promotion specialists and should be able to apply social marketing concepts to our specific campaigns. This course has definitely introduced me to different strategies and ways to approach different health behavior change issues but it might be good to offer other courses maybe even one's in which what we learn in 663 is taken to a whole other level. I feel that students who know that this particular area is what they might be doing in the future would benefit from having more advance courses in public health communication or hey maybe starting to develop a division that makes this their focus. Although, being trained in social marketing will also be beneficial for those of us that will be developing interventions. It will help us create interventions/ campaigns with more chances of being successful. As Grier & Bryant put forth the first step is to enhance the knowledge of public health professionals when it comes to the key elements of social marketing and its application.

News and Media

The Wallington, Blake, Taylor-Clark, & Viswanath (2009) article seemed to relate more closely to the guest lecture from Week 11 than to Week 12. Both the article and the lecture revealed how to systematically utilize the news media as a resource and effective channel through which to communicate pertinent health messages to the public. One of the main benefits of this channel of communication is that a large portion of the population can receive the message through a brief, simple, but directed point of exposure. The lecturer discussed how the organization has to be deliberate in how they utlize the time provided to maximize the impact of the message by 1) scripting the message, 2) considering the best org. representative to act as the spokesperson for the news interview, and highlighting and packaging the message content as "newsworthy" for the reporting journalist to present. The lecturer noted that the manner in which the message is packaged and prepared for public can seem somewhat "deceptive." On the other hand, the concept is similar to the idea of how researcher present the results from study data to visually demonstrate significance. For example, one may consider whether it is more effective to communicate that "Group A is two times as likely as Group B to develop Disease X" or "Group B is half as likely as Group A to develop Disease X." Even the visual graphs and figures selected to present the numerical data found in reserach studies are chosen based on how they most effectively communicate the significant results of the study. The purpose of the message has little impact if its not heard. Therefore, in the end, the packaging of the message is very important. Just like a product marketing, the "packaging" draws attention to the message or product and suggests its relative quality to the public. Without attention, the purpose of the message will be lost and will have fallen on deaf ears.

News & Media Advocacy

Asherlev Santos was a great guest lecturer! I enjoyed getting a taste of the global perspective. Issues advocacy can be incredibly complicated given the glut of players involved. I was aware of the restriction on lobbying for nonprofit orgs, but didn't realize there was a "loophole" that allows advocating for your issue so long as not for or against a specific piece of legislation. Policy change should work alongside other public health efforts and interventions.

The main message I took from the Grier & Bryant (2005) article was that public health professionals have been employing an overly narrow fashion. That is, public health approaches social marketing as a technique for communication campaigns. Social marketing encompasses the full marketing mix of product, price, place, and promotion in development of interventions. These 4 Ps can be translated to public health terminology as follows:

• product = social proposition


• price = costs


• place = accessibility


• promotion = communication

So the idea here becomes to highlight the benefits of your product, reduce costs, and improve accessibility alongside the communication campaign. I liked the example of making fruit cheaper and available where it is not (e.g., corner store for a healthier snack option). When I was in high school I worked at the local convenience store (anyone heard of Wawa?), and our bananas were about 3X more expensive than at the supermarket. People rarely bought them. We can't always expect food costs to remain low... sometimes there are things outside of our control that affect supply and drive up prices. I was very upset when I read this article nearly two years ago because I thought I might be losing bananas which are so crucial for the texture of my daily smoothies... Then I received much worse news and the plight of the banana seemed trivial. Two years later I still have my bananas, but I wonder what the future holds.

It's quite possible that the price of bananas has risen and more Americans are priced out, but I haven't noticed. Although I'm a student, I'm relatively comfortable financially and do not have to pinch pennies to feed myself. This is a privilege I take for granted--many people cannot afford or do not have access to fresh fruit. That sort of leads me to the next reading topic, which was getting health disparities into the media--Wallington et al (2009). It didn't surprise me that one of the difficulties for journalists was that public health stories may require a good bit of background research they may not have time or expertise for given tight deadlines and the need to be a generalist. It has to be a story and it has to be framed appropriately. The focus on getting audience buy-in and affecting change in their beliefs/behaviors surprised me a bit. I imagine you can have a story that isn't personally relevant but still engaging. Disparities can be tricky because they often bring up troubling social inequalities that many would rather write off as personal irresponsibility. Newspapers seemed the best and most willing media to tackle these issues, but this medium likely reaches fewer people in part because of self-selection.

Public Health Policy

I enjoyed Asher's guest lecture this week. I took PH Policy last year and found his brief lecture to be a terrific refresher of PH 648. I had forgotten the complexities of creating a new policy. I must say, I am thrilled that I do not work in Health Policy. I have the utmost respect for Health Policy individuals, however I know that is not where my passion lies. Policy is extremely necessary to promote health in our society. I find in fascinating to see so many variations in focus among health professionals in our industry. According to the Social Ecological Model, Health Policy is the final layer of our industry. If Health Policy is implemented correctly, it can create large scale behavior change across industries or communities.

Asher also discussed the importance of local involvement. I took this message and applied it to our group project this week. I find it easy to be confident that our group has created a polished presentation after many hours of hard work and deliberation. However, we will not know if our message/campaign is being received as intended by our audience until we "test drive" the message. The big take away message this week is that you can never assume you know your audience. You must work with your audience to create the most successful message possible. They also must want the change for it to truly be a success. Once again, communication is the key to successful behavior changes, policy changes, and community buy in.

I found it rewarding to keep this weeks message in the back our my mind while we tested our messages with our target audience. It kept me focused and more critical of our product than I may have been in the past. Our audience gave a lot of constructive feedback which will greatly strengthen our project 2.

Cody

working with for-profit orgs

I cannot stop thinking about this week's reading and lecture! A lot has changed in the 22 years since the Freimuth et al (1988) commentary article was published. I was glad for the history lesson--I had no idea it all began with increasing fiber consumption to reduce cancer risk. It's astonishing to me that the public health entities have embraced partnerships with for-profit companies to get their message out. It's one thing for a PSA to be sponsored by a company and another to merge the message so that it's part of a product. It doesn't sit well with me at all. I was inspired to go through my cabinets and see if I could find any food products with public health organization logos or other health messages on them. None of my food had this sort of labeling, which is interesting because I eat really nutritious, whole foods which maybe should have health messages attached to them. I almost didn't believe it was true since I couldn't find evidence in my own kitchen, but I found this list of American Heart Association's sponsored products. It's overwhelming how many items on the list are highly processed deli meats and frozen dinners! I can accept the frozen fruits/veggies may help contribute to cardiovascular health, but not most of the rest of the items. It's not clear what diet the AHA is trying to promote exactly. With all the meats and the relative paucity of veggies, it sure doesn't seem to be a nutritionally balanced one. I'm surprised too by the inclusion of juices since sweetened beverages are a major source of extra calories. Fruit juice certainly isn't the best source of fruit. I need to do more research on this, but I can't help but tentatively come to the conclusion that the companies are benefiting more from these health messages than the consumers who may be duped. Of course, the jury's still out on this but the salt in all these processed foods may outweigh any benefit of fiber or low fat or whatever criteria these foods met to be considered "heart healthy." Does that feature outweigh all the negatives? Ok, now I'm rambling.

I appreciated hearing the guest lecturer's perspective on health communications marketing. It makes a lot of sense to consider the needs of the media (that is, to generate and hold an audience) when framing your stories and to have authorities on hand with prepared messages when the media does come knocking. The one thing that surprised me was when he said that if you see a story on cancer, he probably had his hands on it or that it was ghost-written. Isn't that the opposite of what happened with the woman who came in a few weeks ago requesting volunteers to write pieces on behalf of her organization? Also, I wonder how this meshes with motivated people operating somewhat outside of the public health infrastructure and promoting awareness or giving advice about healthy living. Here I'm imagining celebrities or survivors speaking from a position of personal experience but lacking a solid understanding of public health recommendations and state of medical knowledge on the issue. Suzanne Sommers on alternative approaches to cancer, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRd3DujnfQU&feature=related

That's it for me this week!

-Melissa

The Start of Module 4

Rob Brown our guest speaker was a good start to our class. He went against the status quo and did not use a power point to get his points across. It was quite refreshing since we have been bombarded with powerpoint presentations every week. THey all have been great but they have been dominating lecture time and it was a breath of fresh air to have someone come and talk to us w/ out a visual. I liked the fact that he provided examples from his personal professional/ personal experiences. Although, we were very quiet that day he did do a great job at trying to engage us in conversation. He was engaging us by asking questions at random to different people in the class. I think my favorite question was, "Why are you here (in the MPH program)?". It was also really nice of him to offer his time if we needed to have our letters to the editor reviewed.

This weeks theme was Media channels (advertising & public relations) which were covered by our guest speaker. He discussed how advertising allows for a one-to-one marketing opportunity if you strategize correctly. One of the take away messages from his talk was to target tv stations/ radio stations in order to take up your idea which can then be potentially funded by other organizations/ corporations. He also said that if we submitted a letter to the editor to our local paper we would have a better chance than if we send it to someone like the New York Times. I already knew this but it was good for him to remind us that if you really are shooting to get your message out there you should take the avenue that will do get it out there faster. I enjoyed the reading for this week. It was a little outdated but the topic is still relevant specially in today's society were many of the product we purchase and consume seem to have a health message attached to them. Cereals are one of the things that continue to incorporate health messages to push products on the public. For example, Cheerios have their lower your cholesterol slogan. Special K is another example but their message has more to do with weight control and how it benefits one's life.

Module 3

A few things stood out for me during this last module: testimonials, framing, and fear- vs. humor-based appeals for campaign messages.

THE USE OF TESTIMONIALS

Testimonials give a personal touch to the messages – they put a face on the issues being discussed. Of course, like every other factor considered for social marketing and message promotion, the testimonial needs to match the target audience. The individual presenting their testimony needs to be a member of the identified target audience in order to make a connection and relate directly to the audience. It hink it's especially effective if the testifying individual is admitting to having some of the same questions, doubts, or concerns about the issue discussed as those in the target audience before THEN being convinced about the promoted message. In the case of Buena Vida, people from various target age groups were utilized because, after all, “No one is safe from cancer. It can affect men, women, and children of all ages.”

I really enjoyed the Buena Vida campaign and believe that it was likely effective with recruiting Hispanics to participate in cancer research studies. In addition to relating well with the identified target audience, I think that the most impactful component to the Buena Vida campaign was the array of the various "family photos" presented. Each of the individuals that were highlighted in the campaign pictures were shown multiple times. I believe this factor was key to its effectiveness in that I felt very familiar with the people pictured. The pictures were displayed (at times) with photo frame borders and arranged like a photo album. It was as if I had been invited to look through the family photo album and view snapshots of their personal lives along side their family and friends. By the time the campaign introduced the individuals and presented each of their personal statements and views about their participating in cancer research, I felt like I should know each of them personally already.

There was one detail that realyy threw me off, though. I recognized that one of the photos used for the Buena Vida campaign was also used amongst the power point slides in our lecture. I also noticed that the name used in the Buena Vida campaign ad (Marta G. Cortez, 68) was different from the example used in the lecture (Ana Hurtado, 62). I’d like to think that the Buena Vida ad referenced the true quote from the lady pictured in the ad rather than assigning a name, age, and fictional quote to some random picture of a senior Hispanic lady found on the Internet for the purpose of making a fraudulent connection with the audience. As a viewer, if I had recognized the same picture from a different ad with a different name and age attached, the testimony would have a largely negative impact on the way in which I related personally to the ad. I would have lost all trust in the message and the campaign as a whole. Recipients of the campaign’s message must be trustworthy. . . in fact, the testimonials MUST be true and share real-life experiences by individuals. . . and not just by actors who play them on TV.

FRAMING

I really liked the way the following anti-smoking ad (desribed in the snopes article below) was framed. The anti-smoking ad is displayed as a mural placed on the ceiling of the designated smoking area for employees. The individuals who step inside the smoking area to light-up view the ad as they glance up at the ceiling. The image provides an eerie perspective of looking up from inside a grave at people mourning the individual's death at the funeral. Like the experiment with Pavlov's dog, the message is paired directly with the target behavior to be changed, providing a negative reinforcer to ceasing the undesirable behavior.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/smokingmural.asp

Of course, the campaign is targeted specifically at current smokers encouraging them to stop and likely not effective to prevent someone from starting to smoke. For one, non-smokers are not likely to be exposed to the campaign due its specific placement. Also, the non-smoker viewing the ad would not connect the fatalistic message to smoking since they themselves are not smoking. It would just be a morbid image of imagining themselves in their own grave with no specified cause of death.

FEAR-BASED VS. HUMOR-BASED APPEALS

My comments here are also in response to Melissa and Liliana's comments noted earlier in the week. They bring up the interesting point that while the literature seems to suggest that humor would be more effective at grabbing the attention of the audience, making the message more memorable, and more enjoyable to the audience, humor is not utilized as often as one would think in social marketing to influence health behavior changes. Like Melissa and Liliana, I wondered this myself. The best explanation I came up with is that the messages most often presented through social marketing ads are SERIOUS ones. It is generally acceptable to joke or laugh about the social issues addressed, especially the ones with fatal consequences like smoking, HIV, and drunk-driving campaigns. Using humor to communicate the health promoting message doesn't typically match the tone of the various health issues highlighted. Humor can also dilute the perceived severity of the issue which, according to HBM, would discourage an interest or adoption of behavior change.

I can remember a couple of examples where the Truth campaign attempted to use humor in its TV commercials. Most of the Truth Campaign TV ads that I can remember have used fear appeals, shock value, and outrageous public demonstrations to communicate the message to young adults and teens. Here are a couple of them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIBaSPSYaO8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4xmFcrJexk&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJTCWtcAews&NR=1

I was disappointed by some of the Truth ads that used humor. When they ended, I was left saying, "what?" I didn't get it. I mean, I understood the messages, but they seemed silly and corny, especially with the whole sing-song quality. Here are some:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3352942533695064300#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjUF1GG65Zk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmAI7KQC0aI&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHSAaGZyZdY&feature=related

I would guess that this funny...er, I mean satirical one would be more effective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRHvZazd4IM&NR=1

Otherwise, it seems that the fear-based, shock-value, "in your face, tobacco company" ads are more effective with getting the attention and making a statement with the audience.

Farewell Module 3

Due to all the presentations we had module 3 seemed like we were cramming it in. The individual presentations for module 3 were very informative about message strategies and the ways we could approach our populations. There are fear and humor depending on the topic we are tackling we can use either to get a message across to our population. My individual presentation discussed branding and its use within the public health area. Prior to this reading I had not thought about branding as something we would use in a health campaign/ intervention. There is no particular product that we as public health professionals are trying to get people to buy. On the contrary we are selling a behavior to them or at least hoping they adopt it as part of a branding strategy. The VERB and truth campaigns are examples of how branding can be adopted to prevent tobacco & promote physical activity.

Just like during our segmentation module this messages, positioning, and media module again emphasizes understanding the population we are trying to reach. Comprehending the target audience will provide a better basis for choosing what type of messaging (humor or fear) implement. Although, we only had one day of lecture I really enjoyed that there were a lot of visual and media examples. Due to time constraints I didn't show all of the media clips I had for my individual presentation. Thus, below you will find the other two examples that were a part of my presentation about branding and its use in public health.

Truth campaing:

http://www.thetruth.com/videos/lectureHall.cfm

The Anti Drug campaign:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV8uXpOs8iM&feature=related

My Anti-Drug Campaign:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg8PSminJ28

mod 3-- framing the message

Module 3 went by quickly, especially since we only really spent one day in class on it, but the content was memorable. How a message is framed is so important. It helps, of course, to know what audience to target and what beliefs/behaviors should change but that's only half the battle in getting a message out to that group that will affect change.

Since I presented on humor, that sticks out most in my mind. My gut told me that fear appeals would be less effective, but it makes sense that they would be more appropriate when targeting screening behavior. We may end up using something like that for our project since one of our target behaviors is STI screening. Bottom line is that all messages need to be tested. That seems to be the case all-around, independent of the chosen method.

The idea that branding should be used in public health campaigns was unfamiliar to me, but now strikes me as brilliant. I remember seeing the Truth ads years ago and wondering who was paying for them as there seemed to be no product... and too interesting and clever to be PSAs. The fact that 5 A Day turned into Fruits & Veggies-More Matters hit home the idea that branding needs to be well thought out so as to be generic enough to be long-lasting.

Module 3 Summary

I find it hard to believe we are already half way through our semester. I took several messages away from module 3 even though we did not have as much time as expected to cover the material. I found the use of humor and fear to stand out the most.

Over the past several years I was under the impression that fear based messages were not as effective as emotional, educational, or humor based messages. Therefore, I tend to shy away from this method. This weeks slides provided a refreshing perspective on fear based messages. I found it interesting to see that fear based messages work well with Latino populations and can offer viewers insight into what their life could be like without changing their behaviors. Again, know your populations!!

Next, I was surprised to see that humor is not used more. Only 1/4 of advertising is humor based. Its easy to remember what stands out to myself as a viewer and assume most people will share my sense of humor. For me, humor tends to grab my attention above all other types of messages. Prior to this weeks lecture, I would have used humor liberally. I will definitely conduct formative research prior to creating any humor based messages in the future to ensure the target audience will appreciate and understand the humor.

In summary, the big take away message is to understand your population, understand how to frame messages, and above all, know what type of messages your audience will remember and what will expedite audience buy in/behavior changes.

Cody

Project 1

The presentations for this week were very informational and allowed me a chance to see what my peers had been working on. It was relieving to know that other groups and not just ours were having trouble segmenting because of our small sample sizes and the similarities in answers. All the groups had very interesting ideas and gave well prepared presentations. This coming week is my individual presentation for the readings and last week's presentation was a good practice.

It was unfortunate we did not get to the lecture but I think that it was worth it to have all the groups present and move the lecture one week.

I was thinking we should start bouncing ideas for our campaign so that we can be ready for our focus group assignment. We should use the blog during break to start brainstorming!

Though we opted not to target by race/ethnicity

The CDC is through social media on facebook and twitter.

Project One presentations

I thoroughly enjoyed viewing the presentations for each of the groups who presented last week. One of my favorites was the Cancer group as they presented information about a real-life opportunity for the viewers to participate in the campaign they were promoting. What an awesome work of their previous networking with and interviewing of the gatekeepers!! They even enecouraged each of us in the audience to continue to spread the word about the Be A Match registry.

In regards to last week's readings, I really felt that the Tversky and Kahneman article was very difficult to read. Although the concept made sense, I found myself having to read the sections over and over again in order in order to comprehend the point that the authors were trying to make. I much preferred the content and organization of the Rothman et al article.

project 1 presentations

I'm glad groups were required to present on project 1. It was interesting to hear the different ideas each group had about how to approach a given public health problem. Even the selection of target behaviors was fascinating--particularly the nutrition group's focus on energy drinks. Something that struck me was the incongruity between expectations and results of target audience interviews. While impractical for this course, it would be much more meaningful to have obtained the desired information through a random sample. For our group it was also difficult to get to the root of the issue because of the sensitive nature of the questions and total lack of anonymity in the way we were selecting interviewees. I think the focus groups on the communication message will go much more smoothly and will elicit better information because participants won't feel like they have to disclose personal information.

On another note, I want to publicly critique my own individual presentation. It didn't go exactly as planned. I tried to keep to time but certainly didn't (has anyone yet??). The most interesting, seemingly crucial components were the example humorous ads I selected but it's easy to forget how much time that takes. Perhaps more importantly, I was not surprised to hear I probably won the award for must "ums" and "ahs" to date. I'm going through a difficult time personally and had barely eaten or slept for days... It's an excuse, but it's real...and I'd like to someday be able to rise above and present myself more professionally in spite of whatever's going on with me. That may be impossible though--I think it's just how my mind works. Overall, I did feel like people were listening and took away from my presentation what I took away from reading the article. I hope that's true, and I suppose that matters more than how polished I seemed.

-Melissa

Framing

The Rothman article brought up an important point for our intended behaviors; how messages are internalized might be different for prevention (condoms, safe, good) vs detection (screening, illness-detecting, scary), and that changing the way the detecting behavior is framed is probably a good call. This is something we've been thinking about from the beginning, and it will be fun to come up with some concrete ways to make screening part of a normal, health-affirming check-up rather than just about potential illness management.

On another note, I saw this the other day: Take a chlamydia test and get free movie tickets! I guess that's one fun way to encourage testing... But also, if you notice the third comment down, this is an example of one of the barriers we mentioned in our presentation, and sort of relates -- There's this seemingly unconscious misconception that all people who get tested are somehow automatically the same people who will test positive. The comment "if everyone goes to the cinema by the end of the film they will all be infected LOL" which, actually, I guess doesn't necessarily mean that the poster thinks everyone already has it, but makes me wonder...I don't follow his logic exactly-- what is the difference between this theater's group and any other theater showing a film primarily watched by a young adult audience?

We had another great round of presentations this week. I enjoyed listening to each group discuss their findings thus far. I also enjoyed hearing the limitations that each group was experiencing. It is refreshing to know that we are all struggling a little to find our exact focus as we enter the next stage of our projects.

I enjoyed Melissa's presentation on the use of humor. She picked out several hilarious videos which continue to stand out in my mind. I particularly enjoyed the urinal clip. I loved how awkward they made the office feel. Great choice!

As for our next step in our group project I think humor is a great tool to utilize when working with screening practices for college aged students. Melissa's presentation will be a huge help for us while we are developing our focus group materials. Another great tool to use as we move forward is Rothman's article on gain and loss framed messages. Specifically, the loss-framed message technique would work well for our group since our focus is on increasing STI screenings. This article illustrated the importance of emphasizing the costs of NOT following through with annual screenings.

I found the Tversky & Kahneman article to offer an interesting perspective on presenting numbers/findings. This article demonstrated that depending on your desired outcome, you can direct the audience into a desired frame of mind by changing the way you report your findings. For example, we could say 1 in 4 students at SDSU has HPV. Or, we could say, 75% of students at SDSU are HPV free. The take away message from this article was to be cautious when presenting outcomes. As a program writer/developer it is important to keep in mind what perspective you want your audience to take. Be sure to fame your outcomes in a way that supports your cause and increases interest in your topic.

Cody

Oh, and speaking of targeting and tailoring...

This website lets you choose how you want to receive the message. Clever, eh? But is it effective?

Clean n Crisp or Urban n Street

End of Module Two

Reading through the blogs and comments, I'm even more disappointed to have missed the first round of book presentations. From what it sounds like, most people were really able to integrate what they took from the presentation readings and make the review their own. My presentation isn't for a couple weeks, and I'm not feeling particularly confident that I'll be able to do the same... I'm definitely one of the "jitterbug" types (though do I get points for not over-practicing? I'm ridiculously superstitious about that) and even though my book is relatively well suited for the theme (reads almost like a coffee-table book) I'm not identifying with the topic as easily as I'd like. It's about individual advertisements that, each in their own way, changed they way we give and accept marketing information. Since the book was written over 10 years ago, and with the way technology had boomed since then.... well, I feel like I need to make the presentation more current; thing is, I haven't owned a television since i was 1998, and I've never had a subscription to any major print magazine- I feel a bit out of the loop. (These days, when I'm in the same room as a TV, it's like I'm hypnotized. Flashing colors! Moving pictures with sound! Sensory overload! Ooo, America's Next Top Model!) I guess the very first assignment should have make pretty clear that I'm bombarded with ads everyday regardless of tv/print choices, but still.. I'm struggling a bit to figure out what's really relevant.

I guess though, in terms of targeting/tailoring (yeah! I hadn't realized the clear difference in terms either- thanks!) those online ads that pop up along side my emails are actually pretty impressive in that respect. I'm not sure I've ever actually clicked on any, and there was definitely a time when I'd try to send emails with wording designed to illicit odd/inappropriate ad popups just for fun- but still, it's a pretty amazing development for ads in general when it actually works.

Regarding class in general, it's been pretty great so far, and there's a lot of information I'm picking up here that I wish I had my first couple of semesters; I feel like this should be one of the first classes we take, rather than the last. The individual presentations continue to be a great way to get the article info; everyone has done a pretty phenomenal job so far, and it's been a pleasure to learn from you guys. Yay.

(Side note: I missed class last week to be there for the birth of my almost-nephew, Jack, and my goodness I think a bit of reality mixed in to that whole "miracle of birth" thing could potentially work wonders for reducing teen pregnancy intentions. Wow.) (Side-side note: That said, he is still the most amazing thing on the planet. Congrats Flo and Jay, he's perfect.)

Now that the audience has been targeted, now what?

Following the material from this module, it's difficult to keep myself from thinking ahead to developing our campaign. I would liked to share some of the treasures I have found regarding sexual health campaigns from the past and present that target the age group of our target audience.

As I noted to the group earlier today, a TV commercial (sponsored by Glaxo-Smith-Kline) began running within the last week with the intention of increasing awareness for cervical cancer. Here's the link for you to view this ad:

http://www.tressugar.com/Cervical-Cancer-Perfume-Commercial-From-Oscars-7662359

Apparently, this and two other GSK commercials were aired during the 2010 Academy Awards show on March 7th. Here are the two other ads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9lFRLWCPTU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq-EAf7kjS8

The "Perfume" ad has already been met with criticism as some feel the ad communicates that women are shallow and easily enticed by things that appeal to materialistic values.

http://www.mmm-online.com/gsk-launches-surprising-cervical-cancer-ads/article/165372/

While I understand this point, I disagree on two levels. First, the truth is often offensive. As a society, both male and female, the US is widely materialistic: always looking for the better car, bigger house, the newest gadget, and fancier purse. I don't believe the "materialistic" suggestion targets women specifically over men; however, I think it's safe to say that cervical cancer is discriminating. Of course, the ad will target women. I assume they could easily target men with a similar ad for prostate cancer or testicular cancer as well.

Second, I believe the analogy of the enticing perfume parallels well to the enticement of romance and physical intimacy that most women desire in romantic relationships. Many of us women, especially young women, are easily disillusioned by our rush of emotions and justify making unsafe sexual choices with the people we (would like to believe we) love. This ad successfully interrupts this thoughtless dream sequence with a bite of reality that needs to be considered logically. Cervical Cancer is a very serious and real consequence of unsafe sexual behaviors that can be easily prevented in a variety of ways. As women, we seriously need to wake up.

Here are some other articles that discuss some of the controversy surrounding these ads and other ads by Merck (for Gardasil HPV vaccine):

http://www.naturalnews.com/028286_Merck_advertising.html
--> Source - http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/76944/Lifestyle/Vaccine+no+guarantee+against+cervical+cancer.html

http://www.pharmalot.com/2009/12/glaxo-pulls-cervical-cancer-ads-in-india-report/

The following article suggests that the commerical market for cervical cancer prevention is wide open for pharmaceutical companies and health promotion agencies alike to capitalize:

http://www.bioportfolio.com/news/datamonitor_37.htm

Here's one more cervical cancer prevention ad I found that has no ties to GSK, Merck, or any other pharmaceutical company:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_tPoYJsAc

Shannon

The end of Module II

The extra presentations this week were very interesting and i enjoyed everyone creative ideas. Izzybeth's presentation was very captivation because of the widget she used at the beginning of the presentation. Frances presented on a book written by the author I will be presenting on as well. It was helpful to see what she included in her presentation because now I can modify mine and take out some of the similar things to not be redundant. I have to say that Lindsay did an amazing job at summarizing her dense theoretical book. The Zen of presentations was another one of the topics that caught my attention. This semester I have multiple presentations and this presentation was very informative. Lastly, I really enjoyed the different video clips that Shairee showed during her presentation they provided a more international perspective on HIV/AIDS.

The second module these past weeks had to do with getting to know target audiences. This module was very helpful with our group projects because it provided different methods and guidelines that could be used when it comes to segmentation. The module also touched upon tailoring health campaigns in particular when it came to health literacy. My favorite readings were the one's that highlighted the high number of people who are health illiterate. It was very insightful to know who this populated was composed of because we tend to think it is the poor and uneducated. Last week I commented on both the health literacy and 'hard to reach' audiences readings. I found these to be very interesting and actually grappled with a few of the issues brought up. Overall, this module was very informative and will help us not only for our group projects but for any future public health campaigns we might engage in.

First round of presentations

Hello all,

This weeks presentations were a fun change of focus for a week. It was interesting to hear the variety of topics covered in each review. The content of each book seemed quite different so it made for an interesting class session. I took away a lot of useful information from each presentation.

One of the most useful pieces I will keep in the forefront of my mind for all future presentations was Anhs book on 'Presentation Zen'. She did a great job of explaining the content of the book. On the other hand, she also illustrated the difficulties she experienced making her presentation more of a story than a slide show. I like that she was honest and real with her presentation. It was a very memorable and relevant presentation.

The other presentations were great as well. I think Shairee's video's were extremely touching. Some of the other books that were presented on seemed a little more 'meaty' than others. Ten minutes seems like a long time to speak, but when you are covering an entire book ten minutes flies. I think everyone did a great job at summarizing what they though were important points in the time given. Someone stated that they wished there were a few more health examples in the presentations. I agree with this statement. It would be a strong addition to the next round of presentations.

I am looking forward to our group presentations this week! It will be fun to hear what our classmates have discovered from their target populations. I will close with a funny video I found this week. It is a little racy, but I found it hilarious. This ad aired in Africa. It has a unique approach.

Enjoy!

Cody

presentations

I enjoyed today's class of presentations. I watched and listened for both content and style so I learned about ideas relevant to public health communication and effective presentations. Anh's fabulous presentation stuck with me and I want to purchase the book (Presentation Zen: Simple ideas on presentation design & delivery by Garr Reynolds). Since we ran out of time in class and I will have to present at a later date (next week?), I will probably go back through my slides and remove a few extra words because even though I felt like I was using restraint I could probably improve upon them further. Anh was right about simplicity in slides making the presenter's job more difficult. In the past I have relied too heavily on my slide content to do the talking for me.

Also the idea of telling a story resonated with me. It's a feature of many of the more memorable talks I've heard and I intend to incorporate it into my presentation. One thing I noticed was largely lacking was the use of humor--maybe it's too difficult or takes more practice? Does one have to be naturally funny to pull this off? Cody showed a funny clip, which definitely help keep me engaged. Her illustration of "world wide rave" marketing strategy of providing special opportunity for super-fans to meet with J.K. Rowlings about the next Harry Potter book was also memorable.

One thing I would have liked to see more public health examples, as it can be somewhat of a stretch to imagine health communications generating the same buzz as, say, Harry Potter. That said, some of these ideas have never been tried with health campaigns and I'm glad to have been exposed. I loved these website examples in Izzybeth's presentation: sexreally.com/ and www.thatsnotcool.com/. This video is cute and gets to a common relationship problem with teens--too many texts!



I was a bit troubled by how the digital harassment issues on this site were gendered (http://www.thatsnotcool.com/VideoIndex.aspx). Text Monsters were both female culprits with male victims, Pressure Pic Problem was instigated by boys asking for nude photos of girls, and The Break-In scenarios both involved boys hacking into girls online accounts. It's important to be mindful of potentially unintended or harmful "hidden" messages included in health communications.

New York City's official condom. Right on.

Healthy Literacy

I loved reading the AMA article about health literacy. It really connects with my research interests in physician-patient relationships and improving physician empathy. As a side note, this article will serve as a valuable addition to the literature review that will contribute to the anticipated sequel of my thesis manuscript. After I study the relationship between physician empathy and various influential factors for my thesis, I look forward to ultimately developing a curriculum to train medical students to provide quality, empathetic patient care. Throughout this proposed training, the physicians-to-be (students) will be placed in various situations/tasks in which each of them will assume the role of the patient. One of the tasks will require students to navigate the health care system with a designated disability such as deafness, paralysis, and/or illiteracy (or dyslexia). The experience will allow the medical students an opportunity to see health care from the patient's perspective and to consider how to communicate with and connect with hard-to-reach patients.

Aside from my thesis, I felt this article enlightened me in other ways as well. In my current place of employment, I work as a social worker in an inpatient psychiatric hospital conducting psychosocial assessments of each patient. While we regularly consider whether the patient has vision/hearing impairments, language barriers, and/or developmental disabilities that may interfere with patient communication, our psychosocial assessments do not specifically assess for literacy. In addition to this, most of the patient education and follow-up care instructions are provided to patient through written materials, including medication instructions, side effects, and follow-up outpatient psychiatric/therapy appointments. It had never occurred to me before that some of our English-speaking patients may be illiterate and unable to understand follow-up instructions for discharge. A patient's misunderstand or failure to follow the doctor's aftercare instructions can be potentially life-threatening or can trigger a recurrence of symptoms.

I feel particularly motivated to begin asking the patients I encounter to read a sample aloud in order to identify whether the patient can read. Furthermore, it seems equally helpful to apply the concepts described with the SMOG readability test in my verbal communications as well (i.e., limited polysyllabic words, specialized medical jargon without clarified definitions).

Shannon

Week 6 - Targeting and Tailoring

This week's lecture slides and readings offered a great set "best practice tips" which Public Health professionals could use to bridge the gap between healthcare messages and hard to reach populations or low literacy populations.

I have read statistics on the U.S. population literacy rates countless times over the past few years. Nevertheless, it ceases to amaze me that approximately 50 percent of the U.S. population is functionally or marginally illiterate (reading at or below 7th grade level). As pointed out in this weeks lecture, this is a huge barrier for day-to-day health activities such as taking prescription medication or understanding what types of food are actually healthy/necessary to control chronic diseases such as diabetes.

Again, this weeks lecture topic is an extremely important concept to keep in mind when creating health messages or campaigns. As we know, doctors have limited time to spend with patients. Therefore I think utilizing lay health advisors/Promotoras is a fantastic way to make health information comprehensible to the target audience. Lay Health Advisors are able to relay the health messages to people of a similar background in a culturally appropriate manner.

Another great avenue to promote health information is the use of word-of-mouth communication. This weeks reading and lecture coincided with the book I will be presenting on next week title World Wide Rave. This book focuses almost entirely on word-of-mouth communication. As discussed in class, word-of-mouth communication is proving to be more effective than traditional mass media efforts. Utilizing Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc is an amazing easy (and free) way to spread ideas or health messages. Think about it, we surround ourselves with computers and smart phones almost all hours of our day. Thus, focusing efforts utilizing these technologies is a great way to raise awareness. It is also a great way to find out what questions your target audience has about your product or service and offers an easy way to answer their questions.

Cody

Health Literacy & hard to reach audiences

This week's reading on health literacy was very interesting and made clear the difference between health literacy and the broader view of literacy, the latter being the one I was more attuned with. However, this week lecture and readings has made me understand that health literacy goes beyond whether an individual can read and write in English. Rather it focuses on whether people can use these skills (reading & writing) to solve problems at proficient levels and function in society. Sheila highlighted that both the provider and patient have roles to ensure a higher level of health literacy. The provider needs to work on communicating with patients in terms that will be comprehended versus medical jargon that might fly over patients's heads. While, the patients need to make sure the provider recommendations and instructions are understood (if not ask questions until it is clear) because this will help with their self-care.

One of the things that shocked me the most came from the JAMA Report on Health literacy. They report that 60% of patients surveyed from two public hospitals could not understand a standard consent form. When I read this the first thing that came to my mind was, What does this say about the reliability of consent forms? Participants might say they know what they are signing up for but in reality they might just wan to have the researcher they do. It also brought to mind an instance with a participant from a study I helped with. The participant was asked to read the consent form and then sign it. However, the participant said that her reading glasses had been forgotten at home and if we could just provide her with an overview of the contents of the consent form. After the readings and lecture for this week it really makes me wonder whether that instance had something to do with the participants health literacy (as this study was related to health).

On a different note, I was browsing youtube and found a Family Guy episode that resonates with this weeks topic. It is funny but also exemplifies what can happen in situations when patients agree to things they might not fully understand or know the exact procedure to particular examinations.

Targeting & Tailoring

I missed class this week because I had a medical appointment. The UCSD Medical Group seems to have incorporated a number of new ideas into their practice, such as electronic medical records. Related to the course topic this week, part of the "patient demographics" they designated a literacy level. A nurse or medical assistant handed me a visit summary printout with this on there and I remember commenting on it. She seemed embarrassed--she must have printed the wrong version of the form and I wasn't supposed to see how they categorized me. I never completed a (health) literacy questionnaire such as REALM or TOFHLA--somewhere along the line someone made a judgment or assumption about my health literacy based on interaction with me or my education level. As reported by the AMA (1999), education level is not a good predictor of health literacy. I wonder if this designation in my chart makes any difference in how my doctors choose to communicate with me.

The SMOG reading grade level calculations floored me. I didn't know how this was done and was shocked at how simplistic it is. Polysyllabic words don't seem like they would necessarily be the best indicator, but the more I think about it I understand how people with low literacy levels would struggle more with longer words. There are short, one- and two-syllable challenging vocabulary words that would be missed using this rubric (e.g., efficacy or endemic or obviate). As pointed out in the lecture, medical jargon may fit into this category.

The Freimuth & Mettger (1990) article on supposed "hard-to-reach audiences" was thought-provoking. I agree that using pejorative terms can be counterproductive, but nowhere did I see him focus on alternative positive traits of marginalized groups. Nevertheless, it added strength to the lessons we're going over about formative research and audience segmentation on more than just demographics.

Word-of-mouth (WOM) communication may be useful for those "hard-to-reach" audiences. The HIV prevention effort used trained peer educators to get the word out in their communities, which represented an otherwise marginalized group unlikely to seek out the information on their own (until perhaps they felt the need because they were sick). If they do have limited access to communication channels and distrust of dominant institutions, WOM presents an excellent strategy to get around these barriers.

I wonder how great the difference in effectiveness of WOM is when coming from friends or family vs. peer educator. Does the peer educator gain some status of authority like a doctor? Sexual assault prevention began pushing for peer educators, particularly college men for campus prevention efforts, and a bystander approach which generally calls for peer-to-peer dialogue.

Sex Ed by Text

Related to my last quick post, this might be similar to what I was thinking we could look into:

Using SMS Text Messages to Reach Youth with Sexual Health Information

View more presentations from AIDS.gov, Office of HIV/AIDS Policy, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In addition to question answering, we could combine this with the info message service like they're doing in North Country for health pregnancy tips; the idea would be to send out messages encouraging screenings, promoting condom use, general safe sex info, etc.

Texting is a pretty important communication method for this age group, http://mashable.com/2010/02/03/teens-dont-tweet-or-blog/

along with other social media http://mashable.com/social-media/news/

Or maybe an iPhone app with weekly random sex info pop-ups integrated with a suggestion calendar for STI screenings?

Week 5 - Segmentation

Hi,

So I just wanted to give you an update and say that I have completed my interviews. I was out of town for the weekend so I wanted to have them done before leaving. How should we bring our findings to class on Tuesday. Should we write up the results or organize them in tables so that it is easier to put all of the interview results together?

On another note I am including the information on the workshop that was held last week.

It was entitled: Health care workshop- Learn were to obtain Affordable health care

As we all know we live in a society where many are uninsured, and therefore have no access
to care. However, there are options available that you can take advantage of, and with
proper resources and information, you can obtain affordable Medical and Dental Care within
your community! To learn more, attend the Health Care Workshop held at SDSU!

Date: Wednesday, Feb 24.
Where: International Student Center
Time: 4 - 5:30 p.m.

Topics to be covered are as follows:

Medical services that SDSU Student Health Services offers, which include dentistry and
optometry. Prices will be presented as a way to show the best deals that are offered;

Community clinics for medical and dental health that San Diego County offers;

College of Health and Human Services study abroad programs.

We will also be giving out "bags of health goodies," that contain lists of public
health/community health clinics and websites (provided by HHSA Maternal Child and Family
Health Services) to participants of the workshop.

We hope you can join us!

I was not able to make it to the workshop to see how it was organized. However, it made me think that we could try to incorporate workshops into our intervention design. We can find ways to make it informative, interesting, and entertaining so that our target population. I guess we can discuss later on.

This weeks lecture and readings were very interesting and will be very helpful as we continue to move forward with our projects. I really liked the PRIZM Market Segmentation I found it incredible that with the click of a mouse we could get information about different geo-graphic locations and the people that populate these areas. Week 4 and Week 5 readings and lectures are our protocols for the type of health campaigns we want to develop and to ensure that we reach our desired population and that we achieve some success with our specific behavior. Segmentation of populations helps to not have one large umbrella represent other segments of the population which should be considered as individual entities. As we discussed this I kept on thinking of the term Latino and how it is used in research. Under the Latino label different groups are represented (i.e. peruvian, argentinian, mexican, etc) but in research it is important to understand how different factors affect different groups in order to tailor interventions. What might work for the mexican community might not work for the peruvian community and the same can be said for how to deal with communication strategies.

- liliana

The Intimidation of Segmentation

First of all, as we enter the discussion about population segmentation, I have to share that it reminds me of the famous blunder made by Chevrolet in the 70's when attempting to market the "Nova" in Mexico. Who wants a car whose name means "it doesn't go" in Spanish? It seems that simple formative research and segmentation could have prevented such an oversight.

Given the readings and our class lecture, the fact is clear that it is truly important to consider segmentation when identifying the target audience for campaign messages. However, I have to be perfectly honest that the idea of conducting segmentation is an intimidating venture to attempt - especially in regards to our group's particular class project regarding HIV/STI prevention.

Initially, we thought to focus our attention on the priori group of African-American women specifically because the research notes that this group makes up one of the fastest growing segments of the population of new cases of HIV/STIs. Developing campaign materials to target African-American women specifically seemed like the most effective place to start in order to put an end to this growing trend.

While we continued to mull over the details unique to this segment of the target population and speculated how to effectively communicate the proposed health message, we quickly realized that this was a daunting task. After all, none of us on the team personally belongs to this priori group. Furthermore, none of us has direct access to a representative sample of members from this group for information. I cannot speak for the other members of our team, but I recognize within myself an overwhelming sense of incompetence and inadequacy when it comes to this challenge of segmentation. Without personal access to the population for formative research and accurate research, how can I possibly learn about the specific needs, values, and interests of this segmented population in order to develop effective and far-reaching health campaign messages? Where do we begin to identify a source for a representative sample? How do we develop culturally-appropriate campaigns that engage the specific members respond to the message with action.

As a result, our project group decided to go with a practical option and identify a more generalized age group to target instead - much like other researchers have done in the past (I'm sure). I am interested to learn more about how to begin the process of segmentation when the starting point for a particular segment is not obvious.

Segmentation - Week 5

This week I found the VALS survey and the PRIZM Market Segmentation tools to be very enlightening. I have given my zip code countless times in stores, however I have never seen the outcome from those data collection processes. I found it interesting to see the trends in my neighborhood as well as the funny titles they give each area. I enjoyed figuring out where and if I fit into my neighborhoods trends. I think these tools will be valuable when creating our sexual health campaign/message.

Again, the theme of this weeks lecture seems to reiterate the importance of thoroughly understanding your target audience. This weeks lecture on psychographics added depth to the multifaceted approach necessary to understand target audiences. Not only must we understand the culture, acculturation, language and need of our audience, we also need to understand their knowledge, attitudes, skills, intentions to change a behavior, etc.

I agree with Melissa's post this week regarding the difficulties associated with choosing the most appropriate variables of interest for each target audience. On the surface, it seems adequate to group people as vegetarian, vegan, meat eaters and so forth. However, the reasons they are in each category can vary drastically. This will be an important factor to focus on while creating our STI screening message(s). I look forward to analyzing the feedback from our individual interviews with SDSU women regarding their needs and reason for accessing gynecological care from Student Health Services. This step will assist us in further narrowing our target audience and matching a message to meet their needs.

Cody

Just two quick things I saw 'round the old internet, before I forget about them

First: Isn't this a cool concept?. A free text info service that is amazingly simple to sign up for. I wonder if there's a way we could use this sort of idea for our topic/population?

Second: An unfortunate example of trying to target your audience.... and not quite getting it right.

segmentation

This week's lesson focused on segmentation of the audience to identify clusters (segments) of a population that differ on variables of interest. Aside from getting the requisite data, perhaps the hardest part of the segmentation process is determining which variables are of interest. The example given in class of food types-- red meat, poultry, fish, green leafy veggies, root veggies, milk, yogurt, etc -- and clustering them by diet style -- carnivore, pescatarian, lacto-ovo-vegetarian, vegan-- helped me conceptualize the process better. It also made me realize how easy it would be to create a homogeneous group just from diet alone. Imagine all the different reasons someone might be vegetarian: religion, animal rights, environmentalism, health concerns, general hippie status, relationship with someone who is vegetarian, lack of available meat, lack of resources to purchase available meat, allergy, etc. Also, is vegetarianism defined as not-meat? Perhaps vegetarians should be further separated into healthy and junk-food vegetarians by not-meat + fruits, veggies, whole grains, healthy non-animal proteins (i.e., healthy diet) and not-meat + few healthy foods and lots of unhealthy carbs and dairy products.

I thought the short-names applied to the groups presents an interesting dilemma. The PRIZM project provides a great example with catchy, but potentially offensive, names like "God's Country" and "Money & Brains." These may help as mental-shortcuts but it would also be easy to misconstrue the characteristics of the group because it overly generalizes. For instance, I imagined "God's Country" to be a highly religious, middle income family, but it's the name for upscale, highly educated, white, childless couple aged 35-54 who live in towns, buy from zappos.com, go on golf vacations and read about skiing. The Maibach (1996) article suggested this was a risk, stating "names will oversimplify the healthstyles which are, in fact, quite complex and rich with subtlety" (p269). I noticed this in one of the articles presented, particularly for the group called something like "Disinterested Males" which was composed of 85% males. It would be easy to forget that 15% are female, and if the communication campaign was heavily gendered, this might leave out a large number of the segment audience, particularly if done on a large or national scale.

My thesis, which is currently in the planning stages, will (probably) involve an intervention with a group of college men aimed at primary prevention of sexual assault. Initially I thought I'd focus on a single fraternity or fraternity men in general, but I worried that men who would not be receptive to the message would be included in the group and cause the whole thing to fail due to side-tracking or derailing the conversation. Now I'm wondering if I should include screening questionnaires to ensure that I have a more homogeneous and appropriate group. My best bet might be to simply conduct the formative research rather than be too ambitious and put together a program rather blindly. I've been pouring over the existing literature to figure out what strategies have been tried and what seems to have worked and ran across an interesting article in the journal Trauma Violence Abuse by Casey and Lindhorst (2009) called Toward a Multi-Level, Ecological Approach to the Primary Prevention of Sexual Assault: Prevention in Peer and Community Contexts. It brings in examples of successful prevention programming in other areas (alcohol abuse, bullying, and HIV) to make suggestions for how to tackle sexual assault. I'm excited to be in this class and learning the public health perspective because otherwise I likely would have overlooked these important considerations in planning my thesis.

-Melissa

For module one I found the McGuire’s Processing Model, the role of Formative research within the health communication process, and Diffusion of Innovations to be key insights. The McGuire’s Information-Processing Model classification of antecedents of advertising effects (Sender, Message, Receiver, Channel, and Destination) was really helpful when it came to understanding the different aspects that make up communication. It is important to understand how the source/ sender affects the messages/ advertisement of specific topics as well as, the message, to achieve a successful destination. For health promotion purposes the ideal outcome would be to have behavior change in response to the message campaign that follows the McGuire’s model. As I mentioned in one of my previous blog’s this model will definitely be helpful as our groups develop interventions for different health topics. My group is looking at STI screening and condom use among female college students. Therefore, the receivers in our intervention would be college-aged women. This is important in determining what channels we will use for our messaging. Since we are trying to reach college age women we could work with campuses or social network sites, etc. However, assignment 1 will be very helpful in understanding how our target population perceives STI screening and condom use and how interested they are in these topics. If they are interested it is more likely they will pay attention to the messages in interventions and actually have and effect in their day to day behaviors.

Formative research is highly important in all disciplines but in public health I believe it is imperative. In order to develop appropriate and successful interventions we must find out what are the needs of different groups and what it is they would like help with. Yes, as public health professionals we understand that certain populations are at greater risk for diseases or illnesses but this might not be as evident to the population at risk. Through formative research we can pursue a research topic of interest but we can also create rapport by talking to people before hand and seeing where they stand and what are some of the things they would like to get out of the research. Focus groups and interviews are two methods used to gain more familiarity and baseline information about a population and health topic. For instance, my group would like to gain more insight when it comes to women’s reasoning for using/ not using condoms and STI screenings. What motivates them to seek these things and if they are not what would make them more comfortable/ empowered to do so.

The Diffusion of Innovation was another thing I found interesting in this first module. This process can be extremely helpful in the dissemination of an intervention. With a topic like condoms or STI testing this process could be very productive if the right types of people are a part of the campaigns. For instance promoting STI testing could become a trend if celebrities were to join different campaigns that promote testing to ensure better quality of life. Obviously, the same could be said for condoms if there was a new product or branding for condoms and this were adopted by segments of the population that are followed by teenagers, adults, etc we could have a more educated and actively involved people when it comes to issues related to sexual practices. Overall, this module provided a very good foundation for health communication and how theories can be incorporated into different communication strategies whether it is for education or intervention purposes.

- Liliana

Module One Thoughts

While reviewing the various topics of this first module, one thought that just occurred to me about health communication in regards to HIV/STI is that we as a nation generally don’t talk about it. I guess like many cultures around the world, talking seriously about sex in the public realm is seen as taboo. There's a negative view about the idea of telling someone how they should behave behind closed doors in their own private lives. I guess, because of this, the few messages regarding safe sex and condom use have little effectiveness.

However, on the flip side, messages of “sex” are plastered everywhere as marketing ploys for various products (e.g., Carl’s Jr. commercials, Cosmopolitan magazine). Sex (or sexual content) is also the icing and edge added to many prime-time TV dramas (e.g., Grey’s Anatomy) or comedies (e.g., Family Guy) keeping viewers interested and attentive. It’s no wonder that our youth demonstrates erroneous beliefs and indifferent attitudes about prevention when the majority of messages promoted make fun and light of sexual behavior.

The dissonance astounds me. While we can be blatant with promiscuous sexuality, we are closed to blatant persuasion for sexual behavior.

Other insights and thoughts from the module?

I enjoyed reading the Cameron (2009) article providing a review of common persuasion theories. I think the reason liked it was because it appealed to my own academic background in cognitive studies and learning behavior. I have held various positions in which I have had to utilize such theories in order to teach children, youth, and adults new concepts - many of which held existing opinions or ideas of what is "true" (whether right or wrong). The delicate manner in which I had to reveal possible errors in the individual's thinking required careful consideration of the individual's vantage point, of starting points of agreement to bridge gap between differing messages, and developing effective illustrations or analogies to make the information understandable and relevant.

I was struck by the basic concepts (or the mediating processes to learning), noted throughout many of the readings, that are regularly used in sales/marketing to sell a product: attention, comprehension, intention (yielding), and retention. A well-known model, which I was surprised was neglected in many of the readings in the Hook-Book-Look-Took method of training design (see link below for more detailed description and visual examples). While this method is used often in corporate training settings, it is also commonly used when training or teaching children. The HOOK serves as a creative way to draw the audiences attention to the material. The BOOK is the presentation of the material in a logical manner that makes sense and works to ensure accurate understanding of the material/message. The link provided suggests a variety of BOOK patterns to fit a variety of topics (e.g., chronological, topical, cause-effect). The LOOK includes the provision of examples and illustrations that appeal to the senses, whether visually or through hands-on exercises, that strengthen likelihood that the individual will yield or intend to adopt the new behavior in the future. The TOOK provides the individual with some object to literally take away from the message to remind them of the lessons learned. For example, a wallet-sized, laminated card displaying CPR steps for quick reference.

http://lacpcce.org/Hook,%20Book,%20Look,%20Took%20-%201.pdf

Mod 1 wrap.

I do a little bit of interning with a nutrition-based non-profit, and right now we're working on using social media etc to get the word out. It struck me, though, how much easier this is to do with something like nutrition than it is for sexual health sometimes. Start talking about kids or food, and everybody supports you with enthusiasm. The campaigns tend to focus on cute, on needy, on pulling on altruistic heartstrings, on making us feel good about what we already do for our own health; they are easily to identify with and generally well received by a really wide range of people. But, when you start talking about sex, I feel like you can easily lose half of your audience right away, another big chunk when you start in with details ("oh, that's not me"), and what's left might be mostly people who were already interested anyway. It seems like the subject matter creates a much wider gap between high and low involvement groups, and makes reaching the latter more difficult. Here's a video of a continuing ed lecture that talks about the issues of sexual health education/marketing and more. (I won't embed it because it's pretty loooong and not dramatically well presented, but the info is good if you've got the patience). I'm interested in what we can come up with as a group to overcome this challenge! As sort of tangential example, the free women's clinic I used to volunteer with had two very different logos for different purposes. The first and official representation of the clinic is an abstracted outline of a woman, highlighting the importance of, including sexual/repro/gyn health into holistic well-being, and is found on all official documents, letterhead, signage, education materials, etc. The other, less frequently circulated logo, is a uterus (well, not just a uterus- whole female reproductive system, actually). This image is on the sweatshirts, t-shirts, pins and underwear that staff and volunteers at the clinic wear and that patients buy to support it. It's a pretty usual image for clothing, and works with humor, "surprise" value, and the idea of an "inside" image that works well in getting people to ask and learn about the clinic or women's health in general. However, this image obviously works much better in certain settings than others-- for example, I was wearing my sweatshirt once in an upscale grocery store in La Jolla, and rather than a casual "sex ed op", I got a very stern lecture from an older woman about the "appropriateness" of my clothing choices :/ Related to this (I swear), I really appreciated the way the Elder, Ayala, and Vega articles emphasized the importance of knowing your audience (and the variations within it!), well before even thinking about developing an intervention. These were both "right on" as well as "aha" moments for me- the Vega article specifically.

Also, it's always nice to read about the work done by the people we're learning from and working with- glad these were included.

In terms of open questions and general feeling for this module, the biggest one in mind for me keeps returning to the idea of contextual information (what people are picking up through what's not necessarily being said, but taken as implication) and whether addressing it as a communication concern is the best way to handle it. I think it makes sense to do it this way- but I'm interested to learn more as we go forward.