Week 15

During lecture this week we focused on Evaluation. Program Evaluation is a very crucial part of any type of intervention or study. We are going to touch upon evaluations in our final project so it was helpful to have the lecturing covering this topic to assist us. However as we learn when studying evaluations, you need to know your evaluation tool prior to implementing your intervention therefore it may have been helpful to learn about evaluation tools a bit earlier but some or most of us may have already taken courses that touch on this topic in more depth so it should be okay. Years ago I worked as the Project Coordinator for The Community Service Grant Program and we created a program for at-risk (or more politically 'high-potential') youth. In the grant a significant amount of money went to an outside contractor responsible for the evaluation part. I didn't really realize what went into creating the tools to evaluate and the extensive work that needs to be done to get accurate results. I think I would have payed more attention had I learned about evaluation before experiencing first had. I also think if process evaluation is done incorrectly it can really hurt a program and funding can be cut so it is so key the evaluation represents the actual results of the intervention or program.
As for presentations... wow lots done and some more to go and then it's over, yippee!

Remember everyone... DROP THE BULL!!!

Only 2 more classes...

I wasn 't able to attend this week's class due to being out of the country but reading the blogs it appears that the class was filled with presentations and a discussion on internet related health media and entertainment education. I posted about entertainment education last week after I read the articles. As I reflect upon it once again I feel that entertainment education is a great way to break through to specific target audiences. I think younger or audiences that are not as educated can relate to education through television programs and or radio advertisements. They are able to relate to characters and this may break down stereo types and prejudice behaviors. I also feel interventions through the internet can be affective but it can more more effective if paired with one on one follow ups.

I think the class presentations have been useful to watch and I am sorry I missed this weeks presentations. See everyone on Tuesday!

Edu-tainment!

I think my favorite part of class today was the extra credit presentation: The Medici Effect. The idea of being innovative and trying new things is a great idea in theory, but from what I've done thus far in my minimal, meager, PH career, innovation isn't so highly regarded. In 666 we were told to not "reinvent the wheel" because granting agencies want to see best practices and know that their money will produce results. Sheila even acknowledged this a bit after the presentation. In terms of research and academia, it seems that the idea of innovation is more widely accepted and people are willing to take a risk with it. For everyday, "normal" purposes, though, it seems like we should stick with the "tried and true".

In the presentation, it was mentioned that by merging two disparate ideas you may create some unlikely connections which lead to innovative ideas. To do this, we need to break through barriers which are normalized associations between words and certain thoughts, etc. I wonder, though, if the author presented ways to workshop through our "barriers". If we are so imbued by culture and society, without certain prompts, we might not be able to break through barriers. Without this sort of guidance, we might stumble along the lines of innovation and it would remain theoretical rather than applicable.

The rest of the class focused on education-entertainment. It was unfortunate that I wasn't able to present today due to other demands. Anyways, I like the idea of "edu-tainment" and as was seen in the individual presentations and class readings it can play a very positive role in changing opinions and attitudes in the audience. What are the changes in actual outcomes like behavior? Does EE actually lead to behavior change? Also, it is a very expensive way to reach audiences. Large audiences can be reached and it can be underwritten by corporations (they can turn a profit as I will address in my presentation next week) but I think that can get politically murky given certain topics. If you can coordinate with an already established program like ER or Grey's, then that could be extremely beneficial and inexpensive. I think for our project, though, EE isn't the most applicable or wise.

Lastly, we discussed the Internet and its extreme pro's and con's. While there are some huge barriers to overcome, I think this is something that we MUST do because younger generations (in developed worlds) practically live off on the Internet and as they age, they will still probably frequent the Internet (plus they are comfortable and familiar with it). I think while we focus on Internet, though, we can't forget about those populations who still do not or cannot access it. As in terms of our project, we've already discussed the use of Internet and it seems that this presentation is a little late in the game for the class. I think it would have been more beneficial to have had it a little bit earlier.

Module 4

Module 4 consisted more of presentations than actual lecturing of the topics of each week. Although we did not have lectures, the articles of each week helped to provide some insight of what the module consisted of, but there is so much one can learn and understand by just reading articles. I personally learn better when its lectured and explained further in class so that I can help gain a better understanding. Aside from that, the fact that we have had so many presentations has been a great opportunity for everyone to better their presentation skills and I really think that everyone in the class has improved in their use of "umms" and are comfortable standing in front of a large group.

For this module my key insights would include, 1) how public health organizations should collaborate with big name companies as we learned in the article on Kellogg All Bran Cereal, 2) agenda setting related to public health and policy, and 3) the more presentations one does, the better you get. =)

Listening to all the group presentations and seeing everyone's ads is really exciting. Its really neat to see the ideas everyone has on how they plan on reaching their target audience. I know that everyone in the class is "shy" and don't want to speak up, including myself, but like others mentioned, it would have been nice to have people say what they like and don't like about our presentation right there and then, so we know how to improve for the next time.

Module 4 Media and Chanels

As Module 4 comes to a close the method I enjoyed learning about the most is finding methods in public health that merge and work well with successful marketing brands. One of the first times I can acknowledge recognizing this is when I attended a breast cancer funding congratulatory meeting that had a banner hung up sponsored by one of the most popular clothing lines in the United States, Charlotte Russe ®. The clothing company paired up with the race for the cure acknowledging the fundraising event and getting their name out there as a brand that is just as concerned about breast cancer. Another example is the usage of famous celebrities and political icons participating in PSAs to get public health messages across. Examples of these can be seen in the link for the teen pregnancy campaign... http://www.candiesfoundation.org/videos.html

I agree with the posted blogs about additional feedback when conducting presentations. Although it helps to have classroom feedback it would be helpful to get constructive criticisms right after the presentations.

The group projects advertisements this week were very creative. Since we are tackling the reduction of energy drinks it is a little bit difficult for us to come up with a campaign that will truly target an impact in the reduction of energy drinks... Especially since realistically speaking we would be going up against multi millon dollar companies. Overall I like the project it has helped me in understanding how populations are segmented to target specific behavior modifications.

The End of Module 4 Methods & Channels

This was a busy week of presentations on a variety of topics. I agree with everything Lynn commented in her post about expanding lecture content as well as providing more constructive feedback about the presentations so that we can work on improving specific things. I try to read and understand the article readings, but without any class lecture or discussion on them, it is hard to completely absorb and comprehend the key concepts.

Similar to Chelsea, I also found the group presentations to be insightful and interesting. I am personally impressed by the the bone marrow (cancer) group. They all seem very unified in their zeal and enthusiasm for their group topic. Sometimes I struggle to find the same excitement about energy drinks... Also, their powerpoint presentations are very "zen" in that they are concise, clear, and visually pleasing. I also was impressed by their technical savvy with the video production. I really liked the concept and felt emotionally inspired by the ad.

In terms of my "three key insights" for this module, I would say that: ppt presentations are capable of going beyond bullet points to tell a story, international public health policy is complex, and short, concise messages tend to be the best. I will use what I've learned from the student presentations to make my own powerpoints cleaner and clearer in my health promotion career. I've already starting employing these concepts in this class by using more graphs and charts to clearly summarize information and be more visually appealing. Next, I think to understand more about how public health works at the global level, I should probably start by checking out the websites of organizations such as the IMF, WTO, etc. I've already done a significant amount of perusing on the UN and WHO websites. Ultimately, I hope to work in the areas of border health or global health. Finally, the messages throughout this class that have stuck the most are those that are clear and concise. I feel like a broken record, but that really is the key. Instad of creating complex ads with a variety of different messages, I think it is important to pull out one or two of the most pertinent ones and focus on those. I will definately apply this concept to my furture work in health promotion communication.

Module 4

This week was the end of Module four and throughout the module we spent more time on class presentations and less time on actual class lecture on the week's topic. The article presentations do give insight into the class presentation but just a brief spotlight on that exact topic covered in the article. We did not discuss the reading for week 13 (which I thought we were supposed to read). The articles talked about using media entertainment to educate the general public on sensitive health topics like Aids. It mentioned different television programs and movies different countries aired. I think informing the public through television, the radio, and the Internet are great ways to inform. Another article talked about Internet interventions. I actually worked on a smoking cessation Internet intervention and like the article said, it was hard to retain the participants. The easily become bored and I think the accountability is reduced when doing an online intervention. However, there are great benefits such as less expensive and they can reach a boarder range of people.

Regarding the presentations throughout the module... there were A LOT of them. I think this class has helped me feel more comfortable presenting due to all of the presentations. I still think there are more improvements that need to be made by many (including myself) when presenting. I think it would help if we were given specific feedback on how we can personally present better. The feedback from the extra credit presentation was nice to have but it was not specific so it's hard to improve based on the feedback. I also think it would be nice to learn how to give more interesting presentations that keep the groups attention when presenting on a dry or complex issue.

I think most of the groups did a great job with their media campaign and like Chelsea stated, I'm impressed with everyone that knew how to make a video... good job. I think I need to learn some new skills.

Wow... this semester is going fast. I won't be at class next Tuesday (hopefully I can get the material from my group members).