Evaluate what? Evaluate THIS.

I think evaluation is often the ugly stepsister that no one thinks about. Kind of like public health. I feel like very few people that I talk to know exactly what public health is.

Only the prevention of disease in millions of people and increased quality of life for even more. No. Big. Deal.

To be honest, though, I didn't know exactly what public health was until I researched it further. I was thinking...I like health, and I like...public things...? Then when I started studying public health, evaluation did not mean that much to me either. Formative, randomized control, impact, process- WHAT? Okay, well now that I'm in my third semester, I really do understand how important evaluating programs is. Money will most likely always be an issue (until I marry my billionaire husband) and being able to figure out what methods are most cost-effective are always going to be important for making the most impact (something I'd like to be able to do). Evaluation of materials is always interesting and never seems to turn out the way you would have thought. Humans are irrational and weird and we think we know ourselves, but it seems like we never really do. An example being our Gardasil campaign- we thought people would be influenced by the fear of putting their partners at risk for HPV. Turns out, this was not true. Sigh. Oh well, I guess at least we know how to effectively market to them.

The Evaluation Process

I never realized how important the evaluation process was until now. After reading dozens of articles for Project GOL, I realize that evaluating is almost as important as program implementation. How do we know if something works if it hasn't been evaluated? We don't. This is why it's so important. For our 666 class, we are currently working on evaluating our program plans. The important thing to remember is that we created our programs based on programs that have worked on our population. How do we know this? Because they were evaluated. Based on our research, we found programs that have been proven to work for our population. Now that we have to evaluate our program, we can base it on previous research. We know that our program will work because it has been proven to do so. I don't know why it never occurred to me how important the evaluation process was because now it just seems like common sense. It was mentioned that there is an evaluation certification. This seems like it would be worth looking into. Maybe a career in evaluation is in my future. who knows?

Evaluation Love

At the risk of sounding incredibly nerdy, I loooovve evaluation processes. I think the people who evaluate programs and campaigns are incredibly under appreciated. Especially because evaluation methods help research teams, program developers and stakeholders understand how their interventions worked, why they worked, and what they can improve for the next round. Essentially, without evaluation processes, we would not have "evidence-based interventions." I also like the fact that these processes are highly structured but ]include a creative component as many times, you have to "think outside the box" to understand why certain things didn't work and how they could be modified to work in the future . Based on my enthusiasm for evaluation, it is not surprising that this week's lecture was my favorite. I really appreciate the chance to learn the details of evaluation methods. In PH 666 and 663, we've learned about the specific types of evaluations, how they relate to goals and objectives and specific examples of each. This is incredibly helpful in my work life as I am involved in evaluating programs but did not have the evaluation specific vocabulary to describe exactly what I've been working on for the last year!

Good evaluations are hard to come by....

So while researching for my global health research paper, I have become increasingly more frustrated trying to find easy to read evaluations of programs. I am currently trying to find information on two poverty alleviation programs: Oportunidades and Fome Zero, implemented in Mexico and Brazil respectively. I am really just trying to see if the programs were successful, which you think would be an easy task, but has turned out to be more difficult than expected. Of course I have found the 300 page documents where are answers are hidden inside, but who really wants to sift through all those pages. I just need a straightforward, easy to read document that tells me if the programs were successful or not. This reminds me of what we learned in class that when evaluation is done, the results need to be easy to read and precise in order for stakeholders and people interested in the program to be able to understand if the program was successful or not. I definitely understand why this point is important, I feel like I am wasting so much time trying to find what I need. Not to mention my research solidifies why evaluation is so important; otherwise I wouldn't know if the programs are worth recommending implementation in other communities. I guess I just assume that evaluation is done on all interventions, it does seem really wasteful to spend money on an intervention and not know if it was successful or should be implemented in other communities. I am glad evaluation has been done on these programs I am researching, but I wish the results were presented in an easier to read format.

Importance of Evaluation

Looking back at my experiences with the children's safety center, where I used to volunteer, I often wonder how they evaluated the program. This center sold home safety products, helmets and provided educational information to families in the Portland area. I'm sure that inventory would be one means of assessing the amount of materials that are sold. However, I don't ever recall them doing any kind of surveys for assessing dissemination of knowledge. We did keep track of references from physician's, so I think there is a lot of information collected that can keep track of process evaluation. In the last couple months that I was there, I worked on a lot of press releases to be distributed monthly, pertaining to the center's monthly topic of choice (i.e. fire safety, pedestrian safety, water safety, etc.). I am not sure if they eventually distributed these to local news stations. If they did, I am not sure that they would evaluate the reach that these broadcasts would reach. However, as far as outcome evaluation, I don't think the program had anything in place to track changes.

The Importance of Focus Group

This week, I found the physical ACTivity presentation to be really interesting. This is because of their focus group. I thought it was so interesting that the adults at the school didn't ever think to ask the children what their opinion was on certain things. The adults all thought that the children would all like particular posters and would dislike particular posters. Turns out they were wrong. The children liked the posters that the adults thought they would not like at all. This shows the importance of pretesting materials and focus groups. Now, the ACTivity groups know which posters will be most effective in reaching children. Even with such a young focus group, the ACTivity group was able to gain information on how to reach their target population. I find this so interesting because they are such a young group, but still knew exactly what they liked and didn't like. Lesson of the week? Focus groups are essential to health promotion messages in order to accurately know your target audience.

Presentation Reflection

It was really interesting to see everyone's ad campaigns that they have developed. I think what is most interesting about them all is how they all target different groups of individuals in completely unique ways. due mostly in part to our various segmentation techniques. I really enjoyed the PA group. Probably because I still watch Sponge Bob and am a Disney fanatic, but I still get excited about children's puzzle books and activities. I think this is why I could see how the children would like the calendar. I also have to say that I really thought that the Delish&Nutrish groups posters were very well done. I think the simplicity really made it eye-catching and professional. Sometimes posters can become too cluttered and hard to read. When we spoke with our focus groups, someone mentioned that it had too much information to be on a billboard. This is definitely something to think about when putting together materials, because placement and the type of advertisement should be vital when putting together campaign materials.

Our class is amazing!

Our class did such an amazing job on all of the projects. I am really proud of everyone. All of the posters looked very professional and creative. One of my favorite parts about this class is how we are able to be creative about how we want to portray our messages. I really liked both of the other group presentations. I liked the "Delish and Nutrish" posters which were very basic and straight forward. I think simplicity was the right direction to go for posters that are going to be hung in a dinning hall. Most people going to the dinning hall don't want to sit and read a poster forever, so they won't if it is long and hard to understand. I liked how colorful the posters were as well, they seemed eye catching enough that I would probably read them if I was in the dinning hall. The physical activity group did a great job as well on their posters. I really liked how they tried to combine the involvement messages and ended up with a poster that most of the kids preferred. I also liked the idea of the bracelets for the children to remind them about physical activity. I think they are cheap enough, but would mean a lot to the children to receive them. Not to mention, a plastic bracelet is easy to wear everyday, so the reminder would be constant. Good job everyone!

Presentation Re-Cap

It was great to see the class presentations this week. I particulary liked seeing the Physical Activity and 'Delish-Nutrish' posters and listening to the feedback they received from their focus groups. Our projects have come along way since Project #1 and it will be fun to see the final results of our projects in a few weeks.
On another note, it was fun to brainstorm on the channels and methods to promote our campaigns. Many years ago, I worked on a couple DV/SA campaigns and never realized I would be referencing my experience in the future! I worked on one specific project that focused on Domestic Violence amongst teenagers. We had billboards, movie advertisements at the local theater, and a couple kickoff events in addition, we wrote a query letter to high school teachers we had previously worked with. The letter explained the purpose of the campaign mentioned that we had different posters and educational materials for pick up/drop off. At that time, I remember thinking that we wouldn't have a great turnout and I was wrong...we gave out over 500 posters in 2 weeks! (Hopefully they were put to good use!!!)

More of the Media Stalking Me, Personally

The Gardasil commercial - "It's not just a girl thing...it's a boy thing, too"(something like that) temporarily placed itself on my Pandora radio station website. Could it be that this happened because I've been doing a lot of 'HPV' google searches? I'm pretty sure it's no coincidence that American Apparel ads and swim ads pop up on the side of my g-mail and facebook page (I swim and I frequent Americanapparel.com often). So, I'm pretty sure someone is stalking me. Besides that--GENIUS. Ads for things I like are on the pages I frequent the most. Brilliant. But, I was thinking about the Gardasil one for men- I don't know for sure if it came up because of my recent internet searches...If it did though, I feel like they targeted the wrong people. I wonder how often it comes up for men. I doubt many men are researching HPV. This time, I think the advertising formula needs to be adjusted a little bit. Maybe instead of showing the ad to people who google information regarding HPV a lot, it should be targeted to men, kind of like how that Hulu Gardasil commercial was targeted at women. Just a thought.

International Agenda Setting

Asher did a nice job of outlining social marketing and agenda setting during his presentation. I was particularly interested in the discussion on Global Health settings because this week I worked at conference which focused on International Health (which, I will not mention by name to protect the innocent, lol). Much of this conference was spent on strategic planning, program development and agenda setting. It was exciting to see participants learn about communication strategies including presentation skills, creating their "personal stories" and practicing their English skills by participating in in-depth interviews. It was also interesting to hear about the real challenges that plague these international organizations and prevent them from getting the word out about their specific issues. Unfortunately, like Asher's slide mentioned, the system for agenda setting doesn't always exist. Participants mentioned difficulties with technology, lack of support and lack of funds which we all know can prevent important issues from getting the attention they deserve. One participant shared her experiences about how she shared her story with a newspaper in her country and the positive feedback and buy-in she received because of it. I'm really hopeful that the others in the conference will have similar experiences (including me~).

10 words or less.....

Part of Asher's lecture talked about sound bites in relation to media advocacy. He stated that they should be 10 words or less, which is so short. I feel like it is really hard to fit all the work and background research that we have done on an important topic into such little space. Especially if it is a behavior that has multiple steps or components. Do you just encourage one aspect of the behavior at a time, or is it best to give a very broad overview in the limited space? I suppose with Gardasil we would want to encourage receiving the vaccination, but at the same time I feel that information about the vaccine is important and how many doses of the vaccine are needed are also very important. A saying we were thinking of putting on some of our posters were Gardasil, it's not just for women anymore. That did not seem very informational and it already took up 7 words. So I think a very difficult part of our project is just figuring out what is really important, and what we most want our audience to know about our product.

3FOUR50

I spent my entire weekend at Filter Coffee Shop in Hillcrest. The entire two days went to do doing research for diabetes in India. (For those of you who don't know, India is projected to have about 30-something million people diagnosed with diabetes by 2025). While doing this, I came across www.3FOUR50.com. It is an initative that is funded by the Oxford Health Alliance. It's focus to prevent the THREE risk factors (ppor diet, lack of PA, and poor diet) that lead to the FOUR chronic diseases (CVD, diabetes, chronic lung disease, and some cancers) that contribute to more than FIFTY percent of deaths worldwide. Why do I mention this? Because their main method of communication is through social networking and the power of the Internet. "The site is not only building an online global health community- it is also communicating health messages in an innovative and compelling way" (www.3FOUR50.com). My point is that their major way of spreading their message is through social marketing. They are working to fight diabetes through social marketing. Their main method? Advocacy. Policy makers do not see the urgency in the diabetes problem. Hopefully, this will be one way to catch their attention.

A Unique Take on Marketing

We were sitting at Filter in Hillcrest, working diligently on pub health work, as we always are. Then suddenly a couple of tall figures waltzed into the coffee shop, dressed as a dominatrix type nun, faces painted stark white with colorful eyeshadow painted on like a work of art. These are the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. To outsiders they may appear to be just another spectacle in the gay community, but they really are much more than that. In fact, they are actually public health figures in the community. They can be found out most of the time, imbibing with their fellow community members, but something sets them apart. They use their outlandish looks and gender-bending attire to gain attention and then spread a wealth of knowledge about AIDS prevention and safe sex practices. They hand out condoms that are packaged in educational guides for proper condom application and how to negotiate condom use. I view this as a type of marketing for the gay community. These waking advertisements are not only role models, but reminders to everyone at the bar (a high risk population) that AIDS preventions is as simple as wearing a condom and by posing as a bar "conversation piece" these figures can stir up conversations about condom usage, increasing the social acceptability of AIDS prevention and decrease the chances of risky behavior. However this is not all they do. They are champions in the community who strive to enact change in policy through raising community awareness and community building. This is definitely a unique take on health communication.

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

I am not new to seeing men in drag. My roommate/best friend is gay and we frequent the Hillcrest area, which is always a new and exciting experience. This includes: men in leather, men in drag, men as women, women as men, and the sexually ambiguous- not saying that there aren't normal looking people, they just aren't as exciting. One group of 'ladies' that I have frequently seen, from afar, look like what seem to be Catholic nuns. Upon further investigation, they are clearly not women. But, in fact, men in insanely heavy make-up and habits. Some even have beards. They are called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The Sisters are an international organization that calls attention to sexual intolerance and gender inequality. One of their main focuses are promoting safe sex, as well as providing education about drug use and other risky health behaviors. They mimic real nuns by dressing in habits and other nun-like apparel whenever they are out, but unlike real nuns, they are satirizing gender and morality. If you disregard how many people they might be offending, it is a very interesting health marketing tactic. Their non-conventional dress elicits a lot of inquiries, and therefore brings attention to these issues. They are very 'fabulous,' if you will, and they always walk around in group, which catches the attention of everyone within eyesight. When I first saw them, I asked my roommate, "what the..." then he told me about them, then i wiki-d them to learn more information. I am sure information is disseminated in this way for anyone who sees them. Dressing up with all that make-up seems incredibly time consuming, but their dedication to health is awesome. The reach of the Sisters may not be extraordinary, but they are growing and each person that is educated is valuable, and hopefully, one less [that is unaware about safe sex, unaware of the effects of STI's, that is a pregnant teenager, that becomes infected with HIV, that makes a poor health decision, that gets cervical cancer].

Yellow Fever

I took a gender and literature class at UCSD while I was an undergrad. It's amazing the subtle hints in magazines, newspapers, and pretty much any media that degrades women in ways that we don't even realize. We don't realize because we see it every day and we're used to it. We don't even find it offensive most of the time. When we see models in magazines, we (women) most likely don't think, "Wow, I totally am offended that that woman is holding an iron. I hate ironing. AM I LESS OF A WOMAN? WHAT AM I WORTH." We usually think "Wow, she's hot. How can I be hot like that."Not that that is any better, but it shows how we kind of ignore that small innuendo as to how women should be viewed.

This brings up another example that has been brought to my attention in the past. At UCSD there was a viral YouTube video that went around called, "Yellow Fever," narrated by a male Asian student that went around. It was about how all the Asian girls like white guys, leaving all the Asian guys in the dust. I believe that a lot of this is the media portrayal of Asian men. They are almost never main characters, they often have heavy "FOB" accents, and for the most part, are stereo-typed, which in turn, reinforces this stereotype over and over. The media can influence in a way that we're not even aware of. Like the way it's more okay for the man to be fat in a relationship whereas the woman still must stay thin and pretty. For example, every tv show- Family Guy, The Simpsons, King of Queens, American Dad, that one show with Jim Balushi- all fat not attractive men, all skinny pretty women. Habituation- we're used to it, so we just accept it and accept the ways that it affects us. Maybe if we can figure out how to apply this to health well enough, being healthy can be normal, too.

There is such a thing as too skinny.

Why do we allow the media to tell us what is beautiful and what isn't? Why are their messages so powerful and how can we get health communication messages to be just as powerful? Everyday we see hundreds of media messages that tell us what to wear, how to look, what to eat, what to buy, where to hang out, etc. Why is it that we don't see as many message about health? Things we can and should do to take care of our bodies. And if we do see any health message, why aren't they as powerful as other media messages? People will listen to almost anything the media tells them, why won't they listen to health communication messages? The media is so good at telling people that they should be skinny, but they don't say how to do it. This is where eating disorders come in. If only the media could tell girls that they need to be healthy instead of skinny.

There is a health skinny and there is a sickly skinny. The other day, Manpreet and I were watching a show about a 23 year old girl who was anorexic to the point where she was gonna die. Her twin sister was a healthy eater and of normal weight. The differences in their looks was appalling. Also on the same episode was girl who was shown going to the grocery store and having high levels of anxiety as a result of being around so much food. These are two extreme cases, I know, but it's happening more and more in our country. It's either anorexia or binge eating, but there is no healthy medium. This is what is happening as a result of the media's powerful messages that women should be skinny, because if they aren't skinny, they won't be pretty, and will never be loved, etc. etc. I think that the modeling world is slowly coming to their senses. Recently, Madrid and Milan both banned models from their fashion weeks if they were deemed "too skinny". Finally, something that sends a message that their is such a thing as too skinny. Now, this message needs to travel across the ocean to our country so that young women know that they don't need be a certain size to be "pretty".  And if only, the all powerful media could be the one to convey this message.

Photoshop Magic

My sister and I are obsessed with Photoshop and all of the interesting things that you can do to pictures with it. Therefore, I really enjoyed the movie that we watched in class. Especially when she talked about how they use these super skinny models that only represent a small proportion of the population and that most of it is based on genetics. However, I think that the majority, if not all, of what we see in magazines has been mastered by Photoshop. I think I realized how out of control this has gotten when I saw an article (or a story on TV or YouTube, I can't remember) about how they actually use Photoshop to make plus size models bigger! I think what was most shocking about this story though was how much backlash it was getting that they would make someone fatter, but people in magazines are made skinnier, buffer, "sexier" on every page of every magazine and you hear very little about this. I have to admit, my sister and I have been trying for years to get my mom to let us Photoshop a family picture of us to send out as our Christmas card (clearly, this would be a joke), but she still won't go for it. I think if everyone played around with Photoshop and knew what you could do with it (the possibilities are truly endless) you would never look at advertisements and pictures in magazines, books, movie posters, books, or billboards the same again!

Are "healthy" messages really healthy?

I also thought that the reading this week was interesting. Especially the article on Kellogg's and the PowerPointon Jean Killbourne's book "Can't Buy Me Love." After reading, the first thing I thought of was the Kellogg's commercial where the slender woman is trying to fit herself into her jeans while the voice over says something like "lose 5 lbs in two weeks by replacing 2 meals a day with Kellogg's Special K." At first glance, maybe this commercial can positively influence someone to change their diet or eat special k to improve their health but the bottom line is (and this is where the Jean Killbourne influences come in): this particular advertisement is targeting women who are insecure about their weight and are willing to crash diet and live off cereal to look like the woman in the commercial who was probably underweight and never had a weight problem to start with!!!!
There are so many "health focused" (for profit) commercials these days and I can't help thinking that maybe these advertisements do more harm than good. First of all, many of the ads focus on looks, use actors/actresses that are not realistic sizes and try and make weight loss and good health seem like a quick fix "just eat this..." As a consumer, it is really difficult and frustrating to see these pseudo-health ads... I'm wondering how many public health campaigns we will need to create to counteract the other negative images in the media... Can we (as public health professionals) even compete?

yogurt....yum

The reading this week was interesting. Although Kellogg was the first company to advertise improved health outcomes by consuming their product, it seems so standard nowadays. I feel like I can't go grocery shopping without having to sift through all of the health messages on the packaging, deciding which to believe and which have unhealthy ingredients hiding inside. Even at certain grocery stores that advertise that they are "fresh and easy" (without naming any names) have a lot of items that are advertised as healthy options, but after inspecting the nutrition labels are filled with saturated fats and sugar. It is really hard to think past all of the healthy propaganda that food companies put out there. I can see how people not in public health, who don't learn about how obese the United States is every week, could take all the advertisements at face-value and think they are eating healthy when in reality their food may just me low in fat, but high in sugar and salt. Even people who are in public health (myself) get sucked in sometimes. For example: frozen yogurt!!! Where most flavors are advertised as non-fat!!! Sounds AMAZING!!!!! right? It is one of my favorite desserts that I am always in the mood for, and even after I read the nutrition facts and pile it to almost half a pound worth, still have this idea that it is a healthy option. Although in some respects it may be a "better" choice it is not always a "good" choice. For example my favorite holiday option at my local yogurtland: pumpkin has 36.1 calories per Oz!!!!!! Which, lets be honest, I usually get 8 oz which puts me at 288.8 calories, plus of course my delicious toppings such as walnuts and graham crackers and I am easily past 300 calories and over 48 grams of sugar. So not really something I should be treating my self to every other day, no matter how much I really want to. Although advertising is somewhat regulated by having to meet certain guidelines to have claims such as "high in fiber" or "non-fat" they are still very misleading because they are not advertising their other hidden high sugar, fat, or salt. No wonder people have such a difficult time in the United States to make healthy options; advertising companies are feeding on our weaknesses and getting us to buy food we think is "healthy" when that is not always the case.

Brand Gardasil Now.

Branding. It's so important. When a person sees a symbol and instantly knows what it means, that is powerful marketing. There a millions of people in the world who see the McDonald's symbol and automatically know what it is for. Nobody gets confused and asks "Hey, what is that yellow M a symbol of?" People just know. It would be amazing to do this for health promotion. What is a symbol that could be used for HPV and Gardasil? I know that they already have a symbol that is associated with the shot, but to be perfectly honest, if I saw it without the Gardasil name beside it, I probably wouldn't recognize it. I have a hard time relating their symbol with Gardasil or HPV. They have a slogan " One Less". But really, how many people know what that phrase is in reference to (excluding those in the health care fields). If we could create a symbol that people could see and automatically think "HPV. Gardasil." that would be very effective in creating awareness of the vaccination and HPV at the same time. I know that it would be hard to do, but it is important to do. The hard part wouldn't be creating the symbol, but actually marketing it so that people will know what it is for. I know that this seems like a long shot, but I definitely think it's something worth looking into.  I'm thinking that maybe it's time to reevaluate the branding of Gardasil.

Branding Experiences

When I began working at my workplace three years ago the agency embarked on a name and branding change. I was naive to think that these changes were a simple process for the agency however, simply changing the organization's name was a huge ordeal. Although I was not directly invovled with the marketing strategies and changes I remember a lot of emails being sent to staff to prepare for the upcoming changes and give us information on how to relay the names and branding changes to patients and families. Staff members were given booklets that contained the new logos, slogan and specific fonts, colors, etc. that we would need to use.
It has been two and a half years (I think?) since the rebranding was complete and I still hear employees and people in the community calling the agency the wrong nameand not recognizing that we now have an entire divison of the agency that is devoted to education and research. I don't think this means that the rebranding failed however, it did show me how difficult it is for people to change their attitudes about a particular service that they've had experience with and/or simply referring to a service or product by another name.
This experience made me think about how important branding is to market products and services and this strategic process is crucial in engaging and understanding target audiences.

Believe it or not

Whilst attempting to do project #2, post-Halloween celebrations (terrible idea), we were trying to figure out which statistics we should put on our 'high involvement' poster campaign. As we were searching, we would come across numbers such as 1% of men get anal cancer from HPV. Obviously, that is not that impressive, scary, or memorable. And it most likely will not catch anyone's attention or make people feel that they are at risk. So, we don't use it. This does not mean that people shouldn't be warned of this risk, or that it is unimportant, it just doesn't grab attention. A lot of this type of thinking goes into marketing health campaigns, as well as any product promotion. It probably also works the other way as well. For example, a McDonalds marketing specialist finds out that if you eat Big Macs 20 times per month, you are 19 times more likely to prematurely have a heart attack (I made that up, but hypothetically ((and probably realistically)). He or she will probably not advertise that. For this reason, I find it very hard to trust commercials, because I know that whoever is putting them out is working for their own interests. Another good example is all of the political ads that are out now. I can't trust anyone. It makes me wonder how people view health campaigns, especially the ones that use fear tactics. Do they think that drug companies are just trying to make money? Are they? I heard recently that people thought that Dr. Oz was a hoax. I thought he seemed pretty legitimate...I guess other people didn't. It definitely makes it hard to make a campaign that addresses all these issues, makes an impact, as well as seems believable.

Branding Gardasil?

So this week's topic in class was about branding. Branding seems very difficult to do with any product. It seems like you are almost trying to create this feeling and memory of a product, service, or behavior; which is pretty much predicting what a person will think. How complicated does that sound? It is only predicting the future, no biggie. Each person can have such a different experience with any commercial or print ad that it seems difficult to guide them in the direction that you want them to go. With Gardasil I am not quite sure the direction we would go. Something that could create a feeling of protection and security, and overall a warm positive feeling towards the vaccine. Although I can't think of anything that would hold the attention of our audience and still evoke those feelings. I feel like it is a hard balance to keep. One positive thing about Gardasil is that it already has a symbol to represent Gardasil, unlike the nutrition and physical activity which would have to create one.

Gardasil image seen here:

Branding Alzheimer's

So, I finally got caught up on all of my TV shows through the wonder of the Internet (if you haven't heard of it, you should probably get it) and I realized how much more aware of hot topics I am in the media than before. This week the hot topic seemed to be Alzheimer's disease, which if you don't know, I'm a huge proponent of promoting, because there is so much that the masses don't know about it, hence why I am writing about it now, interning at the Alzheimer's Association, conducting my thesis on it and writing the world's longest run-on sentence!

So, it started last week when the Alzheimer's Association was promoting their most recent campaign: The Shriver Report. This is interesting on a number of levels. First, they named it after Maria Shriver, California's First Lady and longtime spokeswoman for the Alzheimer's Association. You can see videos about her promoting it all over the the association's website (www.alz.org). Secondly, this is a novel idea, because they are focusing solely on the impact this debilitating disease has had on women, whether they are suffering from the disease themselves or are caring for someone. Thirdly, the media campaign for this has been quite large. So, in other words, if you haven't seen anything about this you either don't watch television or don't receive remarkable channels like ABC (Jenn!). So to roll out the promotion of this there was a huge campaign every morning for the whole last week on GMA (see previous post for breakdown of acronym) they featured this campaign. Here is a link (tear warning again) to one of their interviews with Maria Shriver. So yea, they talked a lot about AD on GMA, but then I was watching all my shows and I started noticing a trend.

I first noticed it when I was watching Desperate Housewives (loyal fan since the very beginning) and when Tom's mom came to help with the new baby and kept referring to him as Rodney (Tom's dad's name), I realized that something was going to develop from this within the plot. This was validated when Allison (Tom's mom) asked Penny (Tom and Lynette's daughter and Allison's granddaughter) who she was and if she lived at the house. I checked with one of my contacts on the set of the show and told them how I was glad that they were using the show to raise awareness of this issue from the perspective of the family. I was told that this story would develop over the next few episodes, so I am interested to see how this plays out. In one of my other favorite shows, Grey's Anatomy, which has dealt with the issue of Alzheimer's earlier in the season (Meredith Grey's mom who died had Alzheimer's), also brought up the issue. However, I don't know that I really agreed with the way that they went about it, because in the story Meredith goes on to get a blood test to determine if she has the "Alzheimer's gene". I didn't agree with this, because they have never made it known whether or not her mother had early-onset Alzheimer's, which is linked to the ApoE-4 gene. This gene is a risk factor for general Alzheimer's disease, but not the number one risk factor (in fact, the number one risk factor is still age), so they way they referred to it in the show made it sound like if she did have the gene she would develop Alzheimer's. Regardless of how it was done though, I think it was interesting how both of these shows brought up Alzheimer's disease around the same time that GMA was highlighting the Shriver Report and their stories about women taking on Alzheimer's disease. In another note related to our HPV campaign, another episode of Grey's had a man who had been exposed to HPV and due to some kind of immune deficiency, his face was covered in warts and his hands looked like tree branches, because he had left it untreated for so long! And then his wife left him after the surgery and he was just sleeping there when she walked away! FEAR TACTICS!

Paranormal Activity

I know that I've mentioned this before, but scare tactics completely work on me. I get terrified into action. I've seen a commercial similar to the one that Brian showed in class (but the pansy American version), and once again, I was scared. Since the first time I saw the commercial, I've actively been trying to keep my phone out of my pocket while I'm driving, so that I will be less tempted to respond to a text because I don't want me and all of my best friends to die a violent, painful, slow motion death.

In contrast to fear, though, are comedic relief. I absolutely love commercials that use humor- the Old Spice guy , the most interesting man in the world- are some of the ones that stand out to me. Jack in the Box and Budweiser try to use humor, but I find most of it stupid. Any how, as much as I love funny commercials, I never really find myself wanting whatever product they are selling. It's definitely a good ploy to entice people into watching the entire commercial, and probably encourages people to talk about it, and therefore popularizing whatever they sell, but I just rarely feel inclined to buy whatever they are selling. Just my personal reaction. However, I feel that for health, humor may work better, to change someone's view on a health topic, or bring it to light, if people are unaware. Maybe.

Women's Health Fear Tactics

On Wednesday night after class, I was reading my November issue of Women's Health magazine and was excited to see that they had an article about HPV. This article discussed the correlation between oral cancers and HPV. The article started out by describing a healthy woman in her mid twenties who never smoked, exercised regularly and ate well, this women had persistant sore throats and colds and after visits to multiple doctors, she found out that she had HPV-16 related stage III oral cancer. The article did not discuss her demise but the article leads one to believe that the outcome was not good.
The article then discusses statistics such as "Between 1999-2007 rates of HPV related oropharyngeal cancer rose 28 percent" and "Those who've had six or moral oral sex partners increase their chances [of oral cancer] by a whopping 340 percent."
After I first read this article, I was pretty freaked out (especially because the article before this one was "Is your health on the line" an article about cell phones and cancer) because they used the description of a young person similar to the demographics of the reader and then related a story filled with statistics to make one believe that you or, anyone could be at risk.
I discussed this article with my roommate and after we were both convinced that our brains were fried (from keeping our cell phones by our heads when we sleep) and that the sore throats we once in a while get were due to HPV related oral cancer we decided to look up more information about HPV related throat cancer... though we found that the HPV article was mostly true, we did realize that some statics were written in a fashion to make the reader believe that they were at risk. Is this a bad thing? I don't necessarily think so but unfortunately, not all readers will investigate these matters on their own and will think that they are going to get things that they aren't at risk for. On the other hand, I bet that the demographics for women's health readers are health conscious women and because of this, maybe an article "scaring" readers isn't appropriate...

Scared into Action

Fear tactics. They work. I remember the first time I saw the video that Brian showed before his presentation. I was at the gym on the elliptical ( I think, I could be making this all up, but you would never know). I was watching the TVs while working out and they played the video on the news. Obviously, they would never play it on US television, it's way too graphic. But, I digress. When I saw the clip for the first time, I felt sick to my stomach. It scared me so bad, I started lecturing my younger sister on texting and driving. I know that it was said in class this week that fear tactics only work to a point, but I think that this "Don't text and drive" campaign, really worked. Since, it's so graphic, it gets the point across. I think that this also works for the "What if?" HPV campaign. It's not graphic, but it really does get the point across. It gets the emotions going to the point where you get to thinking that you should protect yourself and those you love. The goal now is too apply this our message. Do we want to use fear? I think that it would work if we decide to target the "unaware" group. Fear seems that it would work for those with low involvement. At least to get the emotions brewing. who know? Maybe we can scare them into action.

Fear of Humor?

When I consider the kind of message that we want to convey to men 19-26 years old in order to increase use of the Gardasil vaccine, I tend towards thinking we should use fear appeals for our group that is unaware of the Gardasil campaign. I say this because I think that using humor with something like STIs is very tricky. When talking with Stephanie about her presentation, she said that there wasn't anything about what types of topics were most appropriate for humor. I'm not sure what literature says, but I would guess that humor would not be most appropriate for spreading a message to increase the use of the Gardasil vaccine. For our campaign, we should focus on creating a message that not only instills fear about genital warts (seeing as our target audience doesn't seem to care as much about cervical cancer) and also shows them that the Gardasil vaccine is easy for them to get and works. The last step is the most important, because we don't want them to move into a mode of fear control.

Fear and humor

I am unsure how this week's topics will translate to our Gardasil campaign. Humor seems like it will be very difficult to use with such a serious topic as a vaccine that protects against an STI. Also Gardasil is a fairly new product, and humor probably wouldn't be appropriate. Fear on the other hand may be more appropriate because a cancer causing and wart causing virus can be scary. So just showing the real facts about HPV would probably arise fear in itself. Also we would be providing a way to partially relieve the fear by vaccinating against the four strands of HPV. One variable we will need to pay attention to, will be the level of fear we want to evoke in our audience; which I think is a difficult variable to gauge. We are segmenting our target audience into those who are aware of the vaccine and those who are unaware of the vaccine. So our next task will be figuring out how we want to target each audience; both with fear, one with fear one with humor, or just facts. It will be interesting when we have our focus groups to see if the responses that we get are what we expect. I feel like in the first portion of the assignment we were very surprised with the responses from our target audience, and again I think we will end up being some what surprised with our focus groups. I feel as though because a large portion of our group is women, we have a difficult time predicting what our audience will and will not like. The next portion of our project will be fun and we will really get a chance to be creative; I can't wait to start on it!

The Gardasil Controversy

When the Gardasil vaccine ads hit mainstream media, it was sort of a controversial topic. Parents were concerned that if they got their children vaccinated, then it would be sending them the message that premarital sex is ok. Although I sympathize with parents, I also feel that getting them vaccinated would be the smartest thing for them to do. I know that "kids will be kids" is a bad way to look at it, but kids really will be kids. If they are interested in sex, they will have it (or so I believe...I'm not trying to offend anybody). I believe that parents should get their kids vaccinated JUST IN CASE. A kid most likely isn't going to tell his or her parents when he or she begins to have sex, so why not protect them from the very start? Seems like it's the best way to go. I know that it's a touchy subject, but it's definitely worth thinking about rather then keeping a closed mind. As for Gardasil, I think that they picked an interesting target audience for their commercials. It really got parents thinking, and that can never be a bad thing.

The HIV for the Boys

Presentations this week were very interesting. I am always surprised at how creative we all are. Although nerve-wrecking, it is good to get input from everyone on our topic (I guess...). It definitely makes me think about all the public health things that we will actually get to do when we graduate, which is really exciting. Being in school is very time consuming and sometimes annoying, but listening to everyone's ideas, and hearing feedback on our own makes me glad that I chose public health as a field to pursue. I feel like we can actually make a difference in people's lives. Learning theory and how to evaluate things is not always the top of my "Things To Do When I'm Bored" list, but I realize that they are going to be super useful to me in my life, which makes me interested so that I can be a better public health official.

Presenting = dread.

Class presentation days are probably the days I dread most out of any semester. Give me a midterm or a final exam anyday but a presentation.... no thanks!!!!
I think I am mostly bothered about presenting in front of my peers and superiors and embarrassing myself and then having to see these people on a regular basis. I have bad dreams about tripping and falling in front of the class, completely drawing a blank and not knowing what to say, blurting out completely inappropriate words etc.... I'm not sure what my problem is because I'm not shy but I certainly do have issues in front of a crowd. Since I'm presenting my article this Wednesday, I've read the recommended articles and am doing everything I can do to prepare properly... I am what A. Goodman would call a "jitterbug." I think good presentation skills are an extremely important part of communication and in furthering a person's career and I want to commit to improving these skills... Anyone want to go to Toastmasters?
On another note, I really enjoyed the group presentations and appreciated the opportunity to learn about the other projects. It is nice to learn about each group's project at different points during the semester instead of just seeing the final products. Ultimately, I think that this is one of the best way for us to all learn from each other and communication amongst our classmates will only help us to improve our projects.

presentations....

Class was fun to see what all of the groups have been up to these last couple weeks. The ad campaigns for the other groups seemed like they could make big real life changes. I feel as though the campus nutrition campaign could even be a model for other campuses, since poor nutrition choices in on-campus dining halls are not isolated to only SDSU. From first hand experience, I definitely made poor choices my first year in undergrad, gaining a whopping 12 pounds, eating biscuits and gravy every morning because I could. Not to mention, since freshman are just learning how to make nutritional choices on their own, the on campus dinning halls should try to shape those decisions into healthy ones. The physical activity group seems like they have good connections and a really great target population that can affect the children and the entire family. It seems as though the children are a good place to start to make lifelong changes in the community. I can't wait to hear what everyone does for the rest of the project.

Moving Forward...

I really enjoyed watching everyone else's presentations, because it was an opportunity to see what they had done and get ideas for our project. I was really disheartened to hear how much resistance the Delish and Nutrish group was getting from university's food service department. Then again, it is very similar to the same reaction that Jamie Oliver got when he came to make changes at the elementary school in Food Nation. I think that getting some kind of buy-in from an organization is always helpful when developing a campaign. This works for many reasons. They will provide support and help bring new ideas to the table. Also, they will help foster an environment that is supportive of the campaign. I think this goes for anything that you are involved in and isn't just limited to public health. My grandmother, a member of my school district's board for a number of years, found it very frustrating, as the administration was very difficult to work with. Sadly, this hasn't changed and for that the children that can't transfer out of the district have suffered. I was excited to hear about the consultant for the immunization partnership was interested in our campaign. I look forward to hearing what he has to say once our campaign has been developed and pilot tested.

No internet...really?

Hi All,
As my weekend in Northern California comes to an end I must confess...my family is great but the fact that they don't have the internet DRIVES ME INSANE!!! Okay, now that I have that out of my system I can continue with my blog (but really, I can't get over it).
I really liked this weeks' article on "Word of Mouth" advertising and it made me contemplate a lot of different things. The first thing I thought about was how word of mouth marketing has probably changed over the last ten years due to websites such as Yelp! This site gives individuals the chance to read multiple personal reviews of businesses that would otherwise not be accessible. Essentially, Yelp offers a sounding board for those (like me) to complain about bad service or rave about excellent service.
After I started thinking about Yelp I realized that many people (like my parents) may not have the same access to the internet that I do (sorry, still cant get over the fact that my parents don't have the internet). I find that my parents use traditional word of mouth communication and often rely on their friends and families for tips about healthcare and healthy living. This is fine but it bothers me that they are relying on others and do not have the ability to look up their own health information. It reminds me of that game "telephone" that I use to play at slumber parties... You know the game when one person whispers a sentence into the next person's ear and by the time you get to the last person what is said is completely different than the original sentence. I don't know if the healthcare information my parents are receiving is factual and neither do they. In a time period where we do not think about health communications without considering the internet, it is often hard for me to communicate with my parents about certain topics because I'm often inclined to tell them "I'll send you the link" or "Why don't you google it."
Anyhow, reflecting on this has made me realize that I need to be more sensitive and think outside the box when it comes to populations that don't have access to the same technological resources that I do. Even though it angers me that I had to drive 15 minutes to sit in my 17 year old cousins bedroom to write this blog, I realize that I'm not going to help my parents by hassling them to join this century (I know, I'm really mature!!!) but I need to meet them where they are at and give them information that they might use...like printed resources, telephone numbers or television segments.

Health Literacy and PPPSW

When talking about health literacy in class it made me remember a patient that we had at Planned Parenthood not too long ago. The clinic that I work at is in Kearny Mesa in the middle of a lot of business parks and the patients some what represent the setting. At our clinic we do get some Spanish only speakers, which we are used to, which is why about half of our clinic workers are Spanish speaking as well. One day an older Mexican woman came in, and like always we asked her to check in with a check-in sheet, and after getting a fellow clinic worker that spoke Spanish, we realized that she could not read or write in Spanish. I felt very shocked, which I shouldn't have been, but she was the first patient I had seen at the clinic who couldn't check in with our normal process. Then we realized that she couldn't fill out the medical history or the Family PACT application form either, which every new patient needs to do. Luckily my assistant manager was available that spoke Spanish to talk her through the forms, check her in, and then work her up for a clinician, which probably took about 45 min. Also the patient had a history of abuse that needed to be reported, which took about an additional 15 minutes. I felt as though I was so glad that this woman had come in, even though she was faced with literacy barriers, because she seemed as though she really needed our services. The sad part is, she really pointed out how unready Planned Parenthood was to help an individual who can not read or write in Spanish or English. On the typical day at Planned Parenthood we are short one person, and rushing to keep from getting behind on our schedules with the patient's visits already lasting 2 hours. What if she had come in on a different day, would she have left the clinic feeling the same? Would we have had the time that she needed for the assistance? I am not sure. Although a majority of our patients can read and write, I feel as though there should be protocols to follow and training to be prepared to give illiterate patients the best care possible. I suppose a lot of it is common sense and just making sure your patient's needs are fully met. I feel as though this would be a good topic for one of Planned Parenthood's agency wide in-service days, and I think I will suggest it to them. Especially since our Planned Parenthood is now the Planned Parenthood of the Pacific South West (PPPSW), after including Imperial County, I think this would be a relevant topic.

Health Lit

I think my first experience with health literacy was volunteering at a Children's Safety Center. I was writing press releases to be distributed to the local media regarding the safety center's topics of the month. At the time it was a little challenging to write about health statistics in a way that could be easily understood by the general population. And, to be honest, I didn't have the knowledge that I do now about average reading level in America. Somehow I managed, but I have recently been using my health literacy knowledge and skills at the Alzheimer's Association to create educational pamphlets about living a brain healthy lifestyle. I am more aware now about wording and sentence structure to ensure that they are easy to understand and written in a way that is not too scientific and full of jargon. I think that these skills will definitely come in handy when writing about the new Gardasil vaccine for men. Especially because we want to increase knowledge about HPV and it's relation to genital warts and cervical cancer.

Interactions

I remember in college I read something not completely related to health literacy, but regarding interactions between officials and populations of differing socio-economic status. Health literacy is also the understanding of what doctors, nurses, etc. tell you. Anyways, the article was about how middle and upper class members of society saw themselves as equals to professionals and authority such as teachers, police, doctors, etc. They felt entitled to share their opinions with them if they disagreed, as well as question them if they were confused. Middle and upper class members felt it was their right to know information from those they interacted with. In contrast, lower and working class members were more intimidated of authority figures and therefore were more likely to accept what was being told to them without question, regardless if they agreed or understood. I think this understanding plays a large part in health literacy- if someone is afraid of speaking to a doctor, what is going to motivate them to even go to one for health assistance. For all doctors and health professionals, this also spotlights the importance of being culturally competent and speaking and interacting in a way that will make people comfortable. This will also increase the chances of patient adherence to advice.

Restriction on Food Stamps

This morning I was listening to the radio while driving to skypark...nothing special, just an ordinary music radio station. After playing a couple of over-played songs, the lady radio host begins to speak about New York's new policy on food stamps. Basically, people who food stamps to purchase food will no longer be allowed to use those food stamps to purchase sugary drinks, sodas, etc. The male radio host follows up the story with a "why not??". Needless to say, he doesn't understand the correlation between poverty and obesity. I once wrote a paper during my freshman year of college on the relationship between poverty and obesity. People who are poor can't afford healthy food so they eat cheap fatty food. It seems sort of ironic because one would think that if a poor person can't afford food, they would be incredibly skinny, not obese. Nope, it's pretty much the opposite. So, New York City's governor and mayor have begun an initiative to not allow food stamps to be used for sugary drinks and sodas. What a brilliant idea! Why has this taken so long to happen?? I'm not sure, but I'm glad that finally somebody is doing something. Not only that, it's New York City, a model city. Everybody dreams about New York City. Hopefully, just like people follow the fashion of New York, they will also follow this.

In our Program Planning class, Hala was talking about how if somebody has too many drinks at a bar, then the bartender is legally allowed to cut that person off from anymore drinks. BUT, if somebody is too fat, nobody can stop them from eating anymore fatty foods. Why is this? Maybe it's because it's insulting to tell someone that they're too big too eat something, but maybe that's what the person needs to be healthy and lose weight. I feel like this food stamp thing is one step towards semi-controlling what people consume. I read this article  (to read said article, click here) on the food stamp issue, and it said that 57% of New York City's population is either overweight or obese. FIFTY SEVEN PERCENT??? That's pretty ridiculous. Not only that, about 22,000 hospitalizations are due to diabetes and 46% of those people come from a low-income neighborhood.

I know that this is a bit off topic from health literacy or word-of-mouth communication, but this is something I am really excited when it comes to health. I am all in favor of this restriction on food stamps. It is the first step to ending the endless cycle of poverty and obesity. I can't wait to see what happens next and if other cities will follow in New York City's footsteps.

Real Life Commercial Experience!

Last week while I was studying and Dane was watching football (like usual) we received a call from Dane's sister, Chrissy. She called to tell us about her exciting weekend which started out by responding to an advertisement looking for workers to participate in a "pizza tasting." She showed up to this pizza tasting and was chosen as a "final pizza tester" the following day.
The next day, Chrissy showed up to the designated location and was taken in a limo to an undisclosed location with three other people. Before getting into the limo, an employee told the "pizza testers" that they would not have contact with the driver until they reached the location and they would not be able to ask questions, etc. 45 minutes later, Chrissy and her fellow "pizza testers" were getting worried about what they got themselves into when they were finally let out of the limo.
At this point, Chrissy said they were told to beware of the construction zone they were stepping into (she didn't go into detail about the location but said they were in the in a rural area- not too uncommon in Santa Barbara County). As soon as they stepped out of the limo, a loud drill went off and scared everyone. They were then led into an empty room with three way mirrors on one wall and sat down. The "pizza tasters" were asked what they would say if they were told that Domino's pizza used fresh spinach... and they took turns responding and mostly saying that they were doubtful of this claim. After everyone responded -and at this point I'm sure that I'm not delivering the story with the drama and excitement that she did- three of the 4 walls of the room collapsed and they were in the middle of a spinach field. Then... the Domino's employee said something along the lines of "Domino's gets there fresh spinach directly from this field!!!"
Needless to say, the "pizza tasters" were shocked to find out that they were in a Domino's commercial that was based on capturing the "Average Person's" response to finding out that Domino's used fresh ingredients.
I know this story was a bit off topic from our segmentation conversation this week (though I'm sure she was picked for the commercial because she fit the demographic they were targeting) but I thought this story was fascinating because it gives us a behind the scenes look at making a commercial. Clearly, the marketing team put a lot of effort not only into how customers would receive this low-involvement testimonial but also into deceiving the "pizza testers." The "pizza testers" were made to feel vulnerable and scared (the drill noise and not knowing where they were going) which clearly enhanced the shock they felt when the walls of the room came flying down. In addition, I was surprised to hear that these commercials used "real people." I've seen advertisements that made these claims before but, unless it was for a serious issue (definitely not Domino's) I never considered that the people in the ads were anything BUT actors....

oh segmenting....

How segmenting relates to our target audience was a little confusing at first. Our add campaign is going to be aimed at increasing Gardasil vaccines in young males (19-26). So, we need to figure out how we are going to divide them up. I was thinking of possibly dividing our target population up by those that are more concerned with genital warts and those who are more concerned with passing HPV to their partners. I feel as though the men in each of the groups will have very different views of the vaccine and motives for getting it.

Our group really wants to use the Prizm website to better target our audience. We were thinking of looking up the college area, Pacific Beach, UTC, and Linda Vista zip codes to better understand the college population, since these are popular areas for college students. Just to give an example, when I typed in the zip code for Pacific Beach it gave me: boomtown singles, up and comers, brite lites, li'l city, city start-ups, and second city elite. I think that city start-ups really captures our audience:

Low Income, Younger w/o Kids

In City Startups, young, multi-ethnic singles have settled in neighborhoods filled with cheap apartments and a commercial base of cafés, bars, laundromats, and clubs that cater to twentysomethings. One of the youngest segments in America--with ten times as many college students as the national average--these neighborhoods feature low incomes and high concentrations of African-Americans.

One thing that I am thinking about now is how we will use this information and where they like to shop, drive, and travel to, to better create our campaign. I think one piece of useful information is the information about the ethnic diversity of that segment; so while creating campaign materials they may be more culturally appropriate. I think that the Prizm website will be a good starting point for our campaign, but definitely further research is necessary.

McDonalds- The Best Segmenter EVER

The marketers at McDonalds-- best ever. Who can disagree? They are quick, cheap, and EVERYWHERE. Most likely more accessible than any Vons or Albertsons where at least some of their products contain at least some things that may not have been force fed corn (like an apple or banana). They literally have been the forefront of all fast food chains since their inception. They started the happy meals because apparently people didn't want to order more than one thing because for fear of being seen as gluttonous (Crister, author of "Fat Land") (and seriously, how ironic), then they came up with the value menus because they realized that people wanted the most food for the least money without having to buy 4 separate things, and then they came up with SUPER SIZE-ing, and they have the most iconic arches in America. What great marketing. Let's make every McDonalds have GIANT BRIGHT YELLOW ARCHES THAT CAN BE SEEN FOR MILES (duh that's a great idea).

They have something for everyone- happy meals for kids, value for adults, the dollar menu for the quick and cheap meal, and now they even have coffee and smoothies. You can now cut out Starbucks and Jamba Juice from your morning route, and get a breakfast sandwich too (made of most petroleum, probably)! I'm not sure if they still have those toys for kids, but that campaign definitely targeted kids, and kids that want their toys are kids that drag their parents and the rest of their families into the nearest McDs. Why focus on what adults want? Because more kids almost automatically come with two adults! Maybe even another kid! Adults can come as singles...and that's not maximizing the audience.

Some of their newer commercials present the ingredients to make a McDonalds hamburger- genetically perfect tomatoes, onions, and lettuce being freshly chopped, wet with the dew of the new morn [ethylene gas], then cue to the 'best quality beef.' Strange, because I didn't know a tomato vine could be grafted to a salt flat. Obviously, the new trend is that people are realizing that Americans are fat and unhealthy (WHAT?? The FDA would never let us eat something that wasn't good for us!!). Then that "Super Size Me" horror story came out. Awkward. So, McDonalds changed their strategy a little bit, to cater to what was popular, pulled out some new items (coffee, smoothies), and are doing well. Turns out, people still love them some McDonalds. I think the moral of the story is, public health should try to be a little more like McDonalds.

Follow in the Footsteps of Hulu

Segmentation. Interesting concept. It's interesting to watch TV or listen to the radio or even go on Facebook, while keeping the concept of segmentation in mind. All of the ads that I hear, see, come across, were picked out for my age range, for my likes and dislikes, because somebody somewhere in marketing thought that those particular products and/or ideas would appeal to me.

Hulu recently began playing commercials in between whatever television show you're watching. The thing about ads on Hulu is that while you're watching, a pop-up appears the top of the screen saying "Does this commercial apply to you?" and you can click either yes or no. So the next time a commercial pops up, it's more applicable to your likes. Basically, they're figuring out that people who watch this show also like these types of products. It's actually a really good way to do research. So smart, those Hulu people are. 

So how can Hulu's tactics be applied to Health Communication? Alot of research goes into designing campaigns. Formative research, focus groups, etc. How much research goes into how well the campaigns are received? How many people are these campaigns pilot tested on? Once our campaign is designed, it would be nice to pilot test it and see how compelling it is...if it actually motivates men to get the vaccine. Basically, we could ask them (as Hulu does) "Does this campaign apply to you?".

PRIZM Segmentation

I would first like to say something about the PRIZM segmentation categories and how they relate to marketing. When I was in high school they were developing a new shopping complex near my house and one of the developers came to a community meeting that I was attending with my mom. I remember being very upset when they explained why a bookstore was not going to be put into the complex, because according to the guy, "People on the east side don't read." I realize now that they were probably using segmentation to come to this conclusion. I think where this man went wrong was that he didn't try to avoid offending (or probably didn't even realize that he did offend) the population he was talking to.

I think this is especially important when addressing issues in public health, as was made perfectly clear when we were reviewing the different PRIZM names in class, like Shotguns & Pickups and Bedrock America. However, I do see how this is of great importance in gaining useful information and targeting your groups. We started talking about this in our group work the week before, as we felt there were two distinct groups to target in our Garadsil campaign: young men who were in a relationship and those who were not. I think it is important to start brainstorming which message technique (high or low involvement) would be most appropriate for both groups. I realize that we would not truly know until we conduct a focus group, but I would postulate that the men in a relationship would be more highly involved and that the side-door approach would need to be used with those who aren't in a relationship.

yellow shoe

So this morning myself and some fellow health promotioners walked/ran (ok only Brian ran) the San Diego AIDS walk/run. It was really fun and interesting and surprisingly my legs hurt (yes from walking a 5k), but something stood out at the walk, that one of my fellow team mates pointed out. All of the print materials and signs had big yellow shoes on them. They were pretty weird looking and when looking at a shirt from the walk the year before they had the same ugly yellow shoe. I mean, I know it is a walk/run, and yes we wear shoes to walk and run, but why have a shoe as the symbol that you put on everything that says the San Diego AIDS walk/run on it? This yellow shoe made me wonder, first: who is their population they are trying to target with this yellow shoe; second: did they actually put time and money into figuring out if their population really loves this yellow shoe; and third: how do they think a yellow shoe will make people think of raising money for AIDS research. Big yellow shoe seen here:

http://www.miketidmus.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/yellow_shoe_425.jpg

So if I was their population, they would have failed. I am more confused with the yellow shoe than inspired to help with the fight against AIDS. I mean yes; shoes can mean walking/running, which can mean fitness and health which is an outcome of finding a cure for HIV/AIDS, but it seems like a long trail to get from the shoe to AIDS. I mean I felt as though the population that was participating in the walk/run was very diverse, which is probably a hurdle that many health communication professionals deal with on a daily basis........but a shoe? I felt as though the symbol of the AIDS walk/run should have something to do with helping find a cure for AIDS. Maybe I am being too critical because I don't know if I could come up with a better idea. I suppose HIV/AIDS is a hard concept to capture completely, and I guess they are making an effort to be more creative than just the red ribbon. Although, I feel as like more time and effort should go into the materials designing of the San Diego AIDS walk/run. I know budgets and time are not unlimited, but I feel as though the yellow shoe is a poor choice for representing such a great event. Who knows, maybe whoever their target audience is loves the shoe, so they did a great job. This class makes me more critical of communication every week, I blame Sheila, just kidding :).

Community Involvement

This morning when I was frantically searching for my health promotion peers at the AIDS walk I passed by groups with matching t-shirts and team signs and couldn't help but notice the various groups that were participating in the event. I read the team names and saw a few hospices, clinics, LGBT Groups, teams walking in "memory" of lost loved ones, MAC Cosmetics, Best Buy, and other student groups like ourselves.

I started thinking about the groups that came together for this event and the reasons why community members participate. It was clear to me that some groups would participate because of personal experiences or interest in the subject matter whereas others might partipate just because they like running "for a good cause." While there was a pretty good turnout for the event, it didn't appear that it was well advertised outside the Hillcrest area (I could be wrong about this!) and I can't remember if there is even a slogan or catchy phrase that goes along with the walk... While I'm sure that community leaders and gatekeepers were involved in the event planning, it wasn't clear to me that they used focus groups (to enhance participant turnout or make the event more educational or inticing to participants. Don't get me wrong, I participate in the AIDS walk every year and think it is a great event but it feels like it hasn't changed much in the last few years and formative research may be the thing that gives this event a boost!!!

As far as community involvement goes, I am dedicated to participating in these events because it is a fun, healthy, and easy way to participate in a good cause... I think it would also be cool if we, as MPH students participated as a group in more community outreach events (in between class, studying, work, internships, and novelties such as eating and drinking...) It would be fun and a benefit to the community and our learning if we could do things such as have a booth at this event to possibly give out health education materials etc... maybe it is something we can think about for next year (those of us who will still be here!)

The Wisdom of Whores

Looking over the environmental forces influencing a topic, such as socio-cultural and economic factors, reminded me of a book that I read called "The Wisdom of Whores," by Elizabeth Pisani. Despite the mildly vulgar name, it was very informative on formative research and qualitative analysis used to gather quantitative data. The book is written by an epidemiologist who studies the AIDS epidemic worldwide. As an epidemiologist she mentions how she initially disliked qualitative research because it seems so 'fluffy' and not based on hard numbers. But, for her work, she needed to figure out what type of programs would be most effective for the growing number of HIV infected persons, what programs had worked best in the past, as well as why HIV was spreading so quickly in some areas. An interesting point that she brought up, that I never had really thought of before (also because I was not yet super engaged in public health when I read it) was that HIV in Africa is spread differently than HIV in America which is spread differently than HIV in Asia. Pisani spends a lot of time in Africa and Asia talking to the locals, exotic dancers, prostitutes, brothel owners (madams), and many other gatekeepers throughout the two continents. She learns about how in Africa, younger girls are dating older men, who are more likely to have HIV than boys their own age. She also mentioned that many girls and boys more often have multiple partners at a younger age compared to a lot of other places, one of the reasons along with the former, that Africa has the highest prevalence of HIV. Contrary, in Thailand, a lot of travelers come through, and a lot of prostitutes are readily available. One of the reasons that there are so many prostitutes (there, as well as other places) is because sex sells...and sells well. And it beats working in a sweat shop for two cents an hour. Prostitutes are a populous vector for HIV.

After many pages of other differing ways that HIV is transmitted throughout the world, Pisani talks about a convention on HIV/AIDS that she attends addressing how to subdue the HIV virus. She talks about her irritation with the convention-because of her research, she knows that the epidemic cannot be addressed the same way in each country. Each country's intervention plan must parallel its own cultural beliefs. Religion even must play a big role: HIV programs worked best in communist and buddhist countries, while not so well in Christian and Muslim countries. Clearly, to combat such a disease in incredibly different countries, the same program will not work for all.

This lecture, as well as reading the mentioned book, really made me interested in qualitative research and evaluation. I am doing my thesis on exotic dancers, a topic that is mostly written about in a qualitative fashion, but I am analyzing it quantitatively, which is very interesting. Reading over the survey that was given, and looking at my results, I can now see how this research can be made more specific to health issues and risks that exotic dancers are exposed to, and what type of program could possibly help them.

Organ Donation

So, this morning GMA (that's Good Morning America, for all those who don't know) featured a news story this morning that turned on the proverbial waterworks. Basically, the story of two mothers meeting; one, a mother of a 13-year old girl, Tara, who died tragically in a skiing accident, the other, a mother of 2 children who received Tara's heart after her own had been failing for 5 years. You can click here to watch the full video, but essentially it ends with a tearful hug and Tara's mom asking to listen to her daughter's heart. After I had gone to the kitchen to blow my nose and wipe the stream of tears from my face, I asked myself, what would stop someone from being a donor after watching something like that? That's when it hit me, this is just such an instance when a focus group would be ideal for collecting qualitative data on people's beliefs, values, attitudes and knowledge about organ donation.

A few years ago, while volunteering at my high school, I sat in on a few presentations on organ donation. One was by a mother who lost her daughter in a car accident, but donated her organs. Another was by a woman who was waiting for a heart transplant. The third one was by a man who donated a kidney. They were all very interesting to listen to, but probably the most interesting was the kidney donation. It wasn't just because he donated a kidney. It wans't because he rode his bike from Philadelphia to San Fransisco a month after he donated (though this is very impressive). The impressive, interesting and compelling part of his story is that his kidney donation was completely random and voluntary. In other words, he walked into a hospital and said, "Hey, I have 2 kidneys, but I really only need one, so can you take one out and give it to someone else who really needs it?"

Going off of these two anecdotes, I think it would be interesting to get 2 types of focus groups together. Ones that would discuss reasons why people have a) decided to join the registry or b) decided to donate an organ, such as a kidney, bone marrow, or a part of their liver. Then compare qualitative results from these people with another set of focus groups that discuss people's reasons for a) not joining the registry or b) not donating when and/or if they have been asked to. For me it is a simple yes, if I can help multiple people's lives after I am dead, Seven Pounds style, I'm all for it. I just don't understand how some people can be so against it. I mean I do, but I don't. I think the key would be to target reasons why people who aren't deadlocked by religious beliefs and values choose not to, as I have a feeling that many of the reasons may be tied to misconceptions and lack of knowledge about organ donation and the process for doing so. If you're interested in becoming a donor, visit http://www.donatelife.net/.

What's on the top of your mind?

The thing that stuck with me the most this week was the idea of using top-of-mind perceptions in a focus group. I'm not sure why this is what is on the top of my mind, but it is. Could top of mind be used in an "HPV vaccinations for men" focus group? Maybe.

I think what's interesting to me is that the information that we would receive from a top-of-mind perception would be unbiased, completely from the opinion of the person. Real information. Not something I want to hear. Not something that I am expecting to hear. Real information that could be used to create a health campaign. "What do you think of when I say... 'HPV vaccination'?" or "Should men recieve HPV vaccinations?". I wonder what type of response I would get from a male aged between 19-26. Would he say "it's for women only"? Or maybe he would respond with "I know nothing about it". These perceptions could greatly help to creating a campaign because we would know what a person from our targeted audience genuinely thinks about our topic. If they know nothing about it, then we will use an low involvement campaign, maybe some testimonials. If they are highly involved and would like more information, then we could use a high involvement campaign, a fact sheet to hand out, perhaps. Whatever we decide to do will come from the information we learn during our focus groups. Maybe asking people what's on the top of their minds may help lead us in the direction of the perfect campaign.

Eat healthy. It's super trendy.

The Livestrong Cancer commercial that we watched in class last week was probably the saddest ad I have ever seen in my life. I literally almost cried, then wanted to donate to every cancer institute in the world. Hypothetically.

I never gave much thought to public health campaigns before, to be honest. Now I realize that, just like the readings from last week said, health promotion really is marketing. It's getting into people's heads, and getting them to listen to information, and then take action. Except the difference being that in business marketing the business owner profits with literal money, while in health promotion, we profit with that nice fuzzy feeling inside (darnit! Okay, I guess it's worth it). Well, also it is truly an investment in our future. When I first saw the "Theory at a Glance" reading again, I had a little bit of a pre-stigma against the lecture to come, but I never really thought about theory being relevant to health marketing/promotion before. It is actually really relevant! A new side of theory has been revealed to me! Lately I've been noticing myself noticing every marketing slogan, and trying to decipher who they are trying to reach, what type of theory it could stem from, how I can apply that to health promotion, and how effective I think it is (one of those things might not be true...). One that stood out to me, and I thought was relevant to the current diabetes epidemic was for the food store, Fresh and Easy. Their slogan is, "As cheap as being unhealthy." Simple. Memorable. Kind of funny. I want to shop there. Of course, I am a bit biased because I am in Public Health and generally a very healthy eater, but everyone is looking for cheap food! And nowadays, being healthy is pretty trendy and hip (esp in North Park, where I live), so that may be applicable to the people that aren't simply looking for cheap food. Often, when I tell people that I'm doing public health, they say, "oh like psychology?" And I always am confused and want to say, "um no, those don't even sound the same." Clearly, I have been mistaken, because health promotion and public health really do have a lot to do with psychology, and psychology has a lot to do with communication, a key component of public health.

Making a "Sticky" HPV Campaign

So, I'm really glad that we're able to talk about Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point, because I read his first book Blink and loved it and when his next book came out, I thought, "Hey, I'll give this book a shot too." Being someone who has always had more of a biology background, I feel as though he takes subject matter that is usually a little difficult for me to understand and describes it in such a way with examples that makes it easier to understand. One of the key points that he refers to in The Tipping Point is the importance of the "stickiness factor" in the process of creating a social epidemic. You can create a message and spread it through the social network, but if it isn't a message that sticks with your focus group, then it was a failure. I think this really exemplifies the necessity of tailoring messages to your focus group. I believe that in his book he gives the example of the creation of Sesame Street. When it was first developed, the puppets we all know and love, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Elmo and Cookie Monster (to name a few) did not interact with the humans, so the show had two separate world, basically and what they found was that kids were not retaining the knowledge. After some research they found that kids were paying more attention to the puppets, so they combined the two sections and basically tailored the show to the mindset of a child watching the TV rather than the adult and voila, it proved to be the beginning of an educational masterpiece. So, how does this related to our HPV campaign? The way I see it is that we are constantly bombarded with so many advertisements as it is. We became well aware of this while tracking health communication over a 24-hour period, so the key thing is to not only get our campaign out there, but to make it "sticky". Something that will attract the eye of our target audience (males 19-26) and something that will get them talking about our campaign and hopefully pass it along to their friends, but most importantly, something that's sticky enough to get them to go to Planned Parenthood and get their Gardasil shots.

It is because we want you to be healthy, not because we think you are "dirty", duh!!

So after the readings and lecture I feel as though I have a better grasp on the type of project my group will be doing. Since our topic is increasing Gardasil vaccinations in men 19-26, I feel for the most part that we will be dealing with a population that is not very involved with the subject matter. From working at Planned Parenthood I have talked with plenty of men who are unaware of HPV and the harm that it can cause. I feel like a lot of men see HPV as something that can only affect women, when in reality it affects us all. Men and women can get genital warts from certain strains of HPV, not to mention the guilt of giving a possible cancer causing virus to a loved one. Therefore we will have to find a way that will catch the attention of the target population and make them not only remember the ad, but also what we want them to do. Some of the ads that we watched in class touched a lot of emotions, but for some of them at the end I was thinking, "okay what am I supposed to do again." I think we will be dealing with a large range of "stages of readiness to change" in our target population. Some men could be at a Planned Parenthood clinic and see an ad about the Gardasil vaccine being available and just get it because it is not out of their way; but then others who have never been to a sexual health clinic and feel very shy about the topic or feel as though everyone will think they have a sexually transmitted infection (STI) if they do go to a clinic, will have numerous barriers to address. What comes to mind with our Gardasil campaign is "why would you not get a proven vaccine?" We have to get around the fact that some people see getting a vaccine for a sexually transmitted virus makes them think that other people will judge them, and think they are "dirty" or "promiscuous". I feel like this is always the battle with campaigns related to STIs. Our job is to make them feel like they need to get the Garadsil vaccine for their's and their partner's health, not because we think they are "dirty".

Another day, another sexual health battle.

It can happen to you and you and even you!

I feel like I'm "getting" health communication this week... but as I'm starting to observe advertisements with a critical eye and understand a few of the various pieces that play a role in health advertisements, I also have a lot more questions. I really enjoyed Setoo's presentation and learning about the "People and Places" model which, was a good reminder that we should not discount culture when creating our campaigns. I realize that we need to make our campaign group specific but wondering how we can reach our target population but also let them know that they aren't the only ones at risk. I feel like sometimes when a specific group is targeted there is a chance of others viewing the advertisement and saying "well, I'm not a part of this target group so I'm NOT at risk." In fact, maybe that is how young males feel when they see current HPV commercials focusing on women... that they aren't at risk. So... my question is- how do we create an advertisement that is catchy, informational, culturally sensitive, and target group appropriate and also broad enough that it doesn't look like we're saying that our target group is the only one at risk. I guess that is probably why we need to do more research, use a theoretical model etc. Okay...now I'm just confusing myself, not even sure if this makes sense! If I find a more articulate way to express my thoughts I'll fill you in later!

Hey HPV, wanna take it OUTSIDE??

The thing that hit me the most in today's class was the Livestrong campaign. It really hit home for me. The emotionality behind the message definitely made its impact. By having people both who have had cancer or who have known people who have had cancer, this campaign makes it easy to relate to. The point is that we have to all fight together, by asking "Hey cancer, wanna take it outside?". It's clever to personify cancer. In the Braverman article, the authors said that emotions and testimonials work well for people with low involvement. Since we're in the process of developing our own campaign, this tactic is definitely worth considering. I actually have a guy friend who gave his girlfriend HPV. If we could use their testimonial in our program, then we could definitely hit home with males. I know that my own boyfriend (after hearing our friends' stories) is definitely an advocate of the HPV shot for males. The testimonial worked for him so why shouldn't it work for others?
The other part of today's class that suck in my mind was the Grocery Store commercial. It really caught my attention because it turned to out promote something totally different from what I thought it was going to promote. Catching somebody's attention like that is definitely important. Our HPV group is considering making a video so watching these videos and getting ideas from them are definitely helpful. After watching the Grocery Store and the What If commercials, it seems as though the way to go about catching people's attention is by starting the ad with something eye-catching (such as "What if you bought a ticket to Prague?") and then ending it with the facts (such as "What if you got cervical cancer?"). If we could incorporate this method into our campaign, we might be able to make an impact as well. Perhaps start it out with something that could catch the attention of college-aged males and then hit them with the cold hard facts. Theses are all just thoughts for the time being, but HPV is a huge issue that needs more attention among college males. I'm just hoping that one days someone will be asking "Hey HPV, wanna take it outside?".

Health Campaigns...A Necessity

When this class started, I really wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't realize that health communication was such an important part of health promotion. After the first 2 weeks of this class, I realize that there can be so many different ways to market health. Marketing is key to promotion. The ad campaign for MTV and Planned Parenthood is a good example of this. If a company like MTV can endorse such a huge campaign, then it is possible to get more people involved. I'm sure MTV's campaign has reached many young people who need to know the importance of testing and MTV's website even gives locations of where one can get tested. This is such a great idea! If my group and I can come up with a campaign to promote HPV vaccinations that will reach out to young men, then we could possible roll out the campaign and hopefully educate those who don't know that the shot is now available for men. I think overall this class will help me to be more effective in the marketing and the promotion of health campaigns.

Here it goes...

I have been contemplating this blog all day and for some reason, blogging makes me very nervous so...here it goes!

I had a bit of trouble understanding the Scholten article mostly because I know nothing about communication and the theories and terminology were foreign to me. After reading the article a second time and going through our class lecture notes, I realized that the article actually gave a good overview (sorry guys!) of the Information Processing model , the Elaboration-Liklihood Model, and Central and Peripheral routes. I'm still not sure that I understand the theories entirely but I'm sure they will make more sense as we continue throughout the course!

As for our group project, I think it is going to test our creativity to come up with a campaign that will target young men and I'm really excited for the challenge! Earlier today I googled "gardasil and men" and could not find any information besides controversial articles about the vaccine. I then watched the "Too late" commercial and some of the videos on the GYT website. Though I thought some of the videos on GYT were clever (specifically, Pigeon) I felt that the the one commercial that targeted males, "Donny Danger" was pretty dumb. Maybe I am not in touch with our target audience but I did show the video to Dane (my boyfriend) and he didn't think it was that funny either. It makes me angry that young men aren't being targeted for STI advertisements and sad to think that if you change your gender on hulu (thanks for the info Jen!) you won't be exposed to the same messages.... it seems like we have a long way to go (in Health Communication) for creating substantial advertisements for young men and our project is a great first step to learn more about how we can change this!