Message Strategies

This week we examined issues of framing a message(i.e., fear or humor) and branding.

At times I wish there was more time dedicated to lecturing or collectively exploring the new ideas presented rather than presentations. I know that this is a health communications course and that we need time to practice and hone our skills but sometimes focusing more on the content of the course would be appreciated. There have been weeks when the student presentations are nicely integrated with the course material so some of what we need to know is covered in that way but sometimes this doesn't happen as much.

I like that for framing the message, it was emphasized that we need to think of our audience and what's in it for them, or why is it important to them. As public health professionals (or soon to be...) it seems apparent to us why someone would want to eat more healthily, but we cannot make the assumption that our reasons would be considered "pay offs" to our public. We need to shift the focus from us to the audience. Again this sorta a "oh yea, duh!" moment but it needs to be repeated and specifically pointed out since it is so easy for us to forget this.

Speaking of framing the message, I think the examples pulled from the reading were very strong in highlighting how framing can crucially change the way a message is read or perceived. The reading was dense (did anyone really read the equations or did your eyes just kinda glaze over?) but these examples really illustrated the point the article, and the class, has made. When we create our message ideas, we'll really need to consider the idea of lose vs. gain and what will be most effective for our target populations (once we figure that one out....). At this point I would think "risks", fear and the idea of lose will be most effective but we shall see! On the same hand, I think we can combine humor and fear (i.e., excessive throwing up and diarrhea - they're probably afraid of that happening, but we can get the message across in a humours way; or Lynn's idea of the exploding heart. It's funny but hits at a fearful idea: your heart exploding (figuratively) due to too much EDs).

As for the issue of branding, I still haven't had any light bulb moments for that one though I'm still trying to think of something clever. I think we were pretty productive during group time and thank you to everyone for your responsiveness to all the emails. I can't believe we have to re-interview and re-segment but I think this time around we have a better idea of who we need to interview and what we need to know from them. Hopefully after we re-segment them, we will have a clearer picture of our two audiences so we can come prepared to class after break with message ideas. (Don't forget to send me your interviews my Wednesday afternoon.)

Have a great spring break!

Time for the end of module three and the beginning of Spring Break

Module three went by so quickly I almost didn't realize it was the end of the module. Due to the presentations taking a little more time than planned I think we really had to rush through module three. However, it wasn't a very long module so I think briefly going through it was just fine. Module three touched on Framing, Identity, Positioning, and Branding. I think Framing the Message is an important concept to know, especially for our group projects. It is very important to understand your target population and to appeal to them. Once you have interviewed your audience you can create messages that they can relate to (i.e., what will their benefit from stop behavior ____.) I think categorizing your audience into low & high involvement groups is a little more complex because if you classify them into the wrong group the message you are portraying to them may not be well delivered.

On a different note, I think branding is brilliant if the organization can create a successful image of the product. If this occurs the product will most likely always be accepted by the audience or market. If the organization uses an image that creates negative thoughts to a person then most likely it will not be a successful product or in terms of our class, it will not be a successful health related message. For example, Toyota used to be a well known and liked brand. When people saw the Toyota symbol they would automatically think 'safe and reliable vehicle.' Now, the company has a bad reputation and now the brand is not as popular. When you see a vehicle with the Toyota symbol you think... 'gosh I should stay out of their way in case the car can't stop.' So, in the end it is important to brand well but more important to have a good product to be able to brand.

I also keep thinking about humor and fear ads and I think our population will relate best to humor however may not change their behavior with the humor approach. I think it will be interesting to see their reactions to both the humor approach and the fear approach. Although, with the college age population the fear approach may not get through… during the college age many have the outlook that they are invincible and nothing will happen to them. I guess we will find out what approach works best. For presentation two it will be helpful for us to apply what we have learned in each module to our end product. We are really focusing on finding the right subjects to have a successful campaign!

Happy Spring Break!

Module 3

As we come to an end of module 3: Media, Messages, and Positioning, we have learned an array of things when it comes to message strategies. I feel as though there were many key points in this module for us to remember and use in our own projects. One of the main thing that really appealed to me was the use of humor versus fear based messages. I believe humor messages appeal to more people, as people tend to like to be happy and find humor entertaining, while I believe fear based messages cause a bigger result, as people tend to have the mentality of "I don't want that to happen to me". At the same time, it really depends on the situation and what the message is, because at the same time people have the attitude of "that won't happen to me". So as public health professionals, we will be faced with having to create messages for specific target populations, so we'd really have to understand them so that we will know what type of message will really appeal and work with them.
Another topic we covered was tailoring our message. I really liked the table what was in the PowerPoint presentation that display at what level your target population is (ie: public with low educational level) and then the other side informs you on how to properly tailor your message for them. I really think that a guide like that would be helpful to guide those creating messages so that it helps to gear them in the right direction on what to do. When creating health messages, we need to really know our target population so that we can tailor the message to them properly. You wouldn't want to create a brochure informing Latinos about Sickle Cell Anemia, and then indicate that its a big problem for African Americans. A Latino would read the message and then ignore all the important facts about sickle cell anemia, because they will immediately state, well this won't affect me. Same with if you are targeting children, the message cannot be bland and boring because it will not appeal to them. So when creating messages, we really need to know how to properly tailor them so that they reach the right people.
Lastly, it was really interesting to learn about branding and especially associations. Its funny to think that we really tend to stick with brands and remember specific things. Branding really ties together with marketing the product. If you can market the product really well people will remember the brand, just like how people immediately thinks Disneyland when you think if an amusement park. Branding also really has to be done well to convey the message you want to bring across. Creating a strong identity is what makes people remember. Branding can be a complete success or it can fail, therefore creating a brand and bringing forth its identity so that people can remember and relate to it, is a challenge that public health campaigns need to work on. Campaigns such as Truth and Verb has been successful, but something I have realize with other public health campaigns is that a constant brand is non-existent. Truly something that needs to be improved in the future to really gain the public interest.

Overall, I've enjoyed listening to the other groups progress with their presentations and I think we are progressing ourselves as well. Maybe not as fast as some people would like, but its a process, and we will do fine at the end. We definitely are learning as we go, something that I bet happens with many research projects. Well hope everyone enjoys their spring break!!!

Wrapping up Message Strategies and the End of Module 3

I think the topics for this week were very important for health promotion practice, including framing, identity building, branding, etc. I thought that the readings and some of the student presentations related to this module were insightful, however, I would have liked more lecture time on these topics. I think framing messages is really important to understand when working on or implementing health promotion campaigns. The reading last week about gain- and loss-framed messages helped to define some of the basic concepts, and I think that will help me in the second group project. I also think these concepts make a good starting point for novice health promoters such as us in order to start building messages before we try them out with our target audience. I liked the graphics and examples in the lecture, but I would have liked a bit more expansion on them. For example, why is this a good illustration of an emotional message, how has the research shown this type of message to be beneficial, and with what kinds of audiences? In what other contexts would this also be a good example? For most of the examples given in class, it is easy for most of us to decipher the obvious message, but what is the depth behind it?

In terms of our group project on energy drink consumption, I'm having a hard time determining what our behavior is and how to frame it. We want to define 'over-consumption' and find out who's over-consuming EDs and why so that we can decrease consumption. So, our target behavior is ED consumption prevention or reduction? If our target behavior is prevention then we would want to focus on gain-framed messages by emphasizing the benefits of not consuming EDs. However, if our target behavior is reduction then that would be more like a "screening" or "detecting" behavior, and in that case we would want to emphasize the costs of consuming EDs. I think this is an important distinction for our group to determine before we move on to project 2 and creating message strategies.

However, given what we know from our gatekeeper and target audience interviews, ED consumption is not considered a very risky behavior, so reducing consumption is likely not a priority for this population. But when we're thinking about whether our target audience perceives the behavior as risky, this is supposed to refer to the behavior we are promoting. So, the question would be: Does our target population perceive not consuming energy drinks as risky? Obviously, that question doesn't make sense. So then would we just want to conceptualize their perception of "riskiness" in relation to ED consumption (which is not our target behavior)?? And would that mean, then, that we would want to take a preventative approach and emphasize benefits of non-consumption? On the other hand, if we're targeting current consumers, it seems to make more sense to take a reduction approach and emphasize the costs of ED consumption. Right? I feel like I'm caught in a mental maze... but I guess these are issues we'll work through later on in our project.

Today's class presentations were quite informative. The principles of branding will be a beneficial component when target public health at a national level to reach multiple audiences. I think that even though we are competing against multi-million dollar companies it might be easier to continue partnering up with them to enhance public health concerns. For example if we are trying to increase the consumption of water, working together with a popular water bottle company might be beneficial in increasing water consumption.

I really enjoyed the presentation on the verb campaign as I learned a new perspective on how partnering up with other organization or popular media can beneficial in marketing and attempting to change behaviors in populations. I also enjoyed the presentations on how there are mind principles to branding and how easy it is for us to name an array of coffee yet many individuals in the USA do not even know what the CDC stans for or what it does. It reminds us to be innovative.

On another note, Humor can be beneficial in addressing sensitive topics such as reproductive health. The following websites uses o sense of humor yet is also serious in targeting 20 somethings by informing them about reproductive health as well as other issues that come with being in a relationship. http://sexreally.com/the-show

And now for soem side tracking. I found these cool widgets. Or so I think they are pretty cool. Since public health is agenda setting, sometimes it is difficult to keep track of everything going on, therefore i have added this widget to help is keep track of all of the public health policies molding this field:

Which reminds me don't forget to complete the census.

Presentations/Articles

The presentations on Tuesday basically took up the entire class period so we did not have time to discuss our reading or the lecture. I was impressed with all of the group's presentations. I was curious to see if groups would have approached this project differently. It appears after all of the presentations that most of the groups had similar ideas of what the end product would look like. I few groups segmented a little differently. I liked when the groups made up catchy names for their segments. I felt that the substance abuse and the cancer group's presentation was touching and like others mentioned I became very interested in becoming a potential donor for marrow.

I also enjoyed the different videos shown to go along with the presentations; I think they make the presentations more relatable and entertaining. I don't know what we did before we had smart classrooms : )

As for the readings... I also felt the article by Tversky and Kahmeman called, The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice was extremely confusing, wordy and too statistical to be able to relate to. It was not straightforward and I do not think it really helped me understand the topic for the week (maybe through lecture it would have made more sense but I'm not sure). However, the article by Rothman et all was much more understandable. I enjoyed learning about the study involving college students and their perception of prevention of the letrolisus virus and how gain and loss-framed messages influenced their behavior.
On a different note, I think it is clear that our presentations are taking longer than we have scheduled on our syllabus so I'm happy that there has been adjustments the syllabus so that we have enough time for project 2.

I want to say thank you and good job to our group for a presentation that came along nicely. It's always wonderful to work in a group that has great teamwork and thank you to the other teams for suggestions. We are going to target a more diverse population for our next project (and try and find college students drinking red bull in the library : )

Framing Health Messages

The weekly reading assignment that was easier to understand and follow this week was titled: The Systematic influence of Gain- and Loss- Framed Messages on Interest in and Use of Different Types of Behavior. An example of a marketing tactic that utilizes both loss and gain- framed messages has been the anti-tobacco campaign. This campaign has been successful in decreasing the consumption of tobacco use. http://www.thetruth.com/ This campaign has incorporated videos, billboard, television and the internet to reach an array of segmented audiences. They even have a tactful apparel store.

An example of how they use a gain frame message is by letting individuals know not only the harmful effects of tobacco smoke but also the how the tobacco company strategiezes carefully who they want to impact to increase their sales.

For framed messages to be successful research still needs to be conducted to asses perceptions of individuals. There must also be a clear understanding of who the community or that target audience is. What might work for one population might not be as successful in another. I think in this case the truth campaign is n excellent example of an integrated health frame approach utilizing various components in reaching an audience collectively.

Overall I really enjoyed the presentations. The topics were intrested and I will even look further at some of the key components that were presented such as the bone marrow transplant information that was provided.

Framing Messages & Presentations

So this week we were supposed to talk about framing messages but unfortunately we didn't get to it, but I did get to read the two articles that we had to read for the week. The first article by Tversky and Kahneman mentions the concepts of framing messages to influence decisions and focusing heavily on psychological aspects. To be completely honest I found this article to be very confusing and I was REALLY glad we didn't get a quiz this week, because I was nervous what would be asked on it, because I had a really hard time following and understanding the article. Although I found the first article confusing, I was glad that the second one was easier to follow. The article by Rothman et al. focused on the concepts of gain-framed messages versus loss-framed messages. What the article indicated was that loss-framed messages are more effective when promoting screening behaviors while gain-framed messages are more effective in prevention behaviors. They discuss how they used the two messages on two different situations, one on a fictitious disease and the other on oral health. I found the article and the study quite interesting.

As for the group presentations, I found it quite interesting to hear what every group is doing in regards to their project. I feel as though each group did a great job in presenting their information and and well on their way in moving on to the next step. As for our group, I feel as though we just need to do a bit more interviews and really target more males, rather than just females. As Sheila mentioned, we need to decide if we want to focus on the Student ED drinker or on the Alcoholic ED drinkers. My only fear in moving toward the Alcoholic ED drinkers is that we may be moving away from our "nutrition" group and more toward the "substance abuse" group. Not sure if that is okay to do or not, but I guess at the end of the day we just have to figure out which target group is the best one to work with.

P.S. After the Cancer group presentation I was quite curious to learn more about bone marrow donation because I never heard of a non-surgical way of donating marrow. What I found was that bone marrow IS surgical in donation. The method in which you donate similar to blood donation is when the patient needs peripheral blood stem cell donation. And when you register to be a donor you can't choose to be one or the other. Just wanted to clarify this for people so you know and are not confused later when you find out what really happens. This is what I found on the Be The Match website.

Q: How are bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) donation different?

A: Donating bone marrow is a surgical procedure done under general or regional anesthesia in a hospital. While a donor receives anesthesia, doctors use needles to withdraw liquid marrow from the back of the pelvic bone.

PBSC donation is a non-surgical procedure done in an outpatient clinic. PBSC donors receive daily injections of a drug called filgrastim for five days, to increase the number of blood-forming cells in the bloodstream. Then, through a process called apheresis, a donor's blood is removed through a needle in one arm and passed through a machine that separates out the blood-forming cells. The remaining blood is returned to the donor through the other arm.

Q: How will I know if I'm asked to donate bone marrow or PBSC?

A: When you join the registry, you agree to donate by whichever method is needed. The patient's doctor asks for either marrow or PBSC, depending on what is best for the patient.

Framing Health Messages

Even though we didn't get to the lecture about framing messages yet, I still found the articles assigned on the topic this week to be very informative. The first article I read by Tversky and Kahneman (1981) discusses the foundational concepts of framing messages to influence decisions. Apparently these authors are the big whigs who helped to develop the framing model, and while I appreciate the historical context, this was another one of those articles I found to be well outside of my domain of understanding, given the heavy emphasis on psychological concepts and terminology. I was a tad lost; however, what I basically got out of the article was this: the way a behavioral message is conveyed may determine whether or not an individual puts that behavior into action. All the other stuff, including the examples, went somewhere over my head (...conforming to the axioms of utility model...in prospect theory...which attributes to the properties of π...and pseudocertainty induced by sequential formulation...or by the introduction of causal contingencies...what???). Yes, I'm sure Tversky and Kahneman are brilliant, but thank goodness for the second article!

Slightly more up-to-date, the Rothman et al. (1999) article put the former reading into more comprehensible terms. After reading the first few paragraphs I had an "aha" moment where all the theory gibberish finally came together. Basically, gain-framed messages emphasize the benefits of performing a behavior, loss-framed messages emphasize the costs of not performing a behavior, and the type of message given depends on two main things: (1) the individual's perceived risk of and susceptibility to the health issue and (2) whether the behavior being promoted is a detection behavior or a prevention behavior. Simple, right? Well, not totally, but certainly more understandable.

I found this article to be very beneficial as our group begins the second stage of our project. The take-home message for health promoters is that behaviors that are perceived as risky to the individual are usually detection behaviors (e.g. getting a mammogram) and should be accompanied by a loss-framed message (i.e. the negative repercussions of not getting screened for breast cancer). Conversely, behaviors that are perceived as less risky are are usually prevention behaviors (e.g. wearing sunscreen) and should be followed by a gain-framed message (i.e. the benefits of having younger-looking, cancer-free skin). In regards to our group project on over-consumption of energy drinks, first we would need to determine from a sample of our target audience whether or not ED consumption is perceived as a risky behavior (it probably is not). If it is considered risky, we may want to try out messages that emphasize the costs of not reducing or eliminating consumption of EDs. On the other hand, if ED consumption is not considered very risky, we may want to try out messages that emphasize the benefits of reducing ED consumption (or perhaps the benefits of alternatives to EDs).

Well, we will need to brainstorm this more. It kind of feels like a cognitive maze, but it may help to guide us in project #2. We may also gain some clarity after the lecture next week. Thoughts on this??

Group Presentations

Today we got a very thorough overview of what each group is doing for their project, their process, what they've done so far and where they plan to go. I thought that it was very helpful and informative to see what others are doing and it gave me some ideas for what we could do. I also appreciated the input from Sheila about the bar-party-drinkers versus study-drinkers. They're two very different segment groups and we definitely need to do regroup and figure out what the heck we are going to do! I also appreciate that sense this is a learning process, we were able to admit to our limitations and how we need to go back to the drawing board without fear of repercussions.

I found that the drinking and driving group was the most put together and had the best grasp on their material and goals. They were very strong, concise and on point with their information and the process that they have done thus far. It seems that they have really thoroughly thought through their target behavior change, their audience and how to reach them. I'm sure Feion (who is super amazing in SPSS) ran some interesting stats with their emailed survey and it will be a well-founded campaign.

I would also like to thank everyone for coming together to put together a pretty awesome presentation. I was a little wary since we ran into some major limitations but I think that it went over well and we all did a great job presenting. Thanks to everyone for all the work they did in regards to project one! Now on to project two...

Speaking of project two, I am very thankful that Sheila will push back the due date for that project seeing as how we didn't get to anything other than presentations today. While project one seemed pretty straight forward, when I skimmed over the second assignment there definitely some aspects of it that appeared to be completely new to me. I hope that with all the presentations left, etc, we're able to thoroughly go over the different aspects and what will be expected of the groups. Not to mention, we still have a lot of work to do at square one!

Extra Credit

I thought the extra credit presentations were extremely insight. It was interesting to see the board areas that each reading touched on. We had presentations on how to give presentations all the way through basic text book readings on the fundamentals of communication. One major thought I had through all of the presentations was that... it is very difficult to make a presentation interesting with dry material. There were even a few presenters that somewhat apologized for a dry presentation due to the material they were covering. What I realized when reading my book for extra credit was that you can make it interesting but it takes a bit of 'out of the box' thinking.

One example in my book was that a science professor wanted to keep his students interesting so they would pay attention during his lectures. What he did was research other professors to see how they presented their material. One way they made not so interesting material interesting is that they created a mystery. By getting the audience to question keeps them wanting the answer throughout the presentation. Another way to make a presentation interesting is to try and make the audience relate to the topic. This can be tricky but if you can find something people can relate to than you can most likely find something that will keep their attention.

I am going to try and take something from everyone's presentation and use it to make mine better (at least this is what I'm going to try to do : )

Everyone so far has done a great job!!!

Knowing your Audience Module

This module of "Knowing your target Audience" is really a key module. Although it was a shorter from Module 1, it really mentioned key topics that as Public Health Professionals should really focus on. As we learned first about segmentation and how to appropriately apply that to different groups and ages, so that you may properly reach your target group. Then the use of different tools such as PRIZM and VALS, something I never knew of before, can definitely become of great use in the future, if we decide to pursue something within the health communication field. Then last week we spoke about Health Literacy, a topic that I am personally passionate about, since I am interested in health disparities and health literacy is always one of the main topics. If we make sure that our health documents and whatever we do use for the public is easily readable and culturally appropriate, then we have definitely done our jobs right. In Health Communication, if we don't KNOW our target audience, then we can't properly reach them. In regards to questions or suggestions for the future, I think it would be interesting to have an entire lecture on how to reach different types of cultures. Maybe a type of informational class that focuses on different cultures in San Diego, Latinos, African Americans, Indians, Native Americans, and informing us on how to target material for these populations, not only by language use but what may appeal to them.

I also want to add, that I had a lot of fun last week with the Brown Bag Sessions. I really learned a lot different things from listening to the different books my classmates have read. It was really interesting to hear about the Zen in presentations, because that was something I have never heard before. Also that text messaging technique Izzybeth used is something I may consider using in the future because it really is good to use as an icebreaker. I can't wait to hear what the other students have read!!

Brown Bag

As students I think it is important that we share knowledge and continue networking with each other. I found that the presentations opened up my perception on other forms of marketing and public health promotion. The scope of technology is so broad and with the advancement of it sometimes it is hard to follow what is new. In order to advance in a public health pop culture it is important to stay in tune with innovative websites, widgets , tweeter accounts and blogs that are successful. Overall the presentations were well done. The only thing I would suggest is that we make them more interactive somehow. For example the youtube videos showed in class were clearly represented by the messages that were being conveyed. Someone mentioned that they had attended a presentation where pictures were used through out the presentation. I think that is a unique way to present and it may work for some but there is a great deal of preparation that goes into a presentation like that from presence to tone of voice.

Overall I enjoyed learning about module 2 "Getting to know your target audience" It is important to sometimes step away from our own audience perceptions and really get to know the taget population who they are and what they like in order to tailor health communication appropriately. I really like the following video because although it is an advertising commercial the logistic of the individuals changing the environment to increase physical activity is absolutely brilliant and extremely simple. They took the time to think about an innovative way to increase the usage of stairs.

Health Communications in Practice

I think that overall our class 'Brown Bag Symposium' went very well. While a little nervous in anticipation of my own presentation, I was pleasantly surprised with everyone's performance. I think it may be helpful for Sheila to post our powerpoint presentations on Blackboard for those of us who would like to have a copy.

I thought there were many things that went well with the symposium. First, all of the presentations we saw incorporated some type of interaction or media such as webpages, YouTube videos, etc. I also thought the text message exercise Izzybeth did at the beginning of her presentation was very creative. I appreciated the 'Zen' message from our other classmate as well. I definately agree with the concepts from her book encouraging presenters to be clear, concise, and simple. That way, the audience is listening and paying attention to the presenter, and not inundated with muddied and verbose slides. Of course, as Sheila mentioned in class, a bonafide presentation is distinct from a lecture, in which a professor aims to transfer a sizeable quantity of information about a topic that students will need to learn and master. I suppose a presentation should be more entertaining, in a sense; however, I still think lectures also need to be interactive!

Well, I wouldn't be fair and balanced if I didn't also mention some of the aspects of the presentations that did not go so well. I won't name names (I'm sure there were some things that I also could have improved upon!), but I will briefly mention some of the things that I noticed. First, I know that we all get nervous in front of a crowd of people (even if those people are our peers), but speech rate is a hugely important factor for presenters to keep in mind. Whereas speaking too slow makes the presentation seem interminable and tends to lull the audience to sleep, speaking too fast is exceedingly distracting and the nervousness of the presenter makes even my heart race! For that reason, I think that erring on the side of 'too slow' is much better than sprinting through the presentation. Going along with speech rate is voice level. Certainly, it is much more attention-grabbing for a presenter to project her voice than to speak softly. Also, continuing the Zen presentation theme, slides with too many words, too many bullet points, and too small font is both distracting and frustrating. Not only am I squinting to read all of the words, but I struggle to follow along with the presenter as she speaks. I happen to prefer the use of charts/graphs that concisely summarize main points into a neat, easy-to-understand format. Finally, confidence makes all the difference when a presenter strives to catch the attention and engage the participation of the audience. A presenter who speaks like a little mouse and meekly asks the audience a 'discussion question' is not going to elicit a response from them. If the audience perceives the presenter to be shy, withdrawn, or even apologizing in her tone, they are not going to feel at ease to participate. The presenter may blame the audience for being "non-participatory" when really the problem lies in the lack of confidence in the presenter's approach.

I think that as we think about promoting health and educating the public, our presentation style is something to always keep working on, whether we're in a 'Smart' classroom with a fancy powerpoint presentation or in a small dirt floor hut with merely a pointing stick and a paper handout.

Brown Bag Day!

Congrats to all of our team members that presented today. Everyone did a great job! And what I really appreciated was tying your extra credit reading to how it pertains to class. Some of the presenters merely told us what was in their book. It was assigned in this class for a reason, so I think it would have been powerful for presenters to tell us why these texts were meaningful or pertinent to our course. COMMUNICATE to me why I should care, don't make me guess. Oh, a rule to which we should all try to adhere during our project! :P

Anh's presentation on how to present was really useful, practical, and pragmatic. I've heard similar suggestions from other sources and I thought it tied in really well with the reading for that week (a nice, concise version!). I think having that reading (or sections) be assigned at the very beginning of the course would have been useful. We could all stand to learn a thing or two about successful presentations/presenting and since we all have to present, it would be a great resource for all of us as presenters and as audience members. Not everyone has the same experience with presenting and without some form of guidance we end up seeing presentations that are too long, with too much information and we end up zoning out which isn't fair to anyone involved.

Any presentation that references Harry Potter or uses it as a main example has my vote! Cody's presentation tied in well with Izzybeth's about viral sources for getting messages across, particularly with younger populations (the i-generation, I believe they are called). What really stood out to me was Cody's point that people don't want to hear about your product, but they do want you to "fix their problem". As Cody said, a poor mother doesn't want to hear that she should feed her children healthier foods, but she would be interested in learning HOW to do that within her means. I know that for my own professional goals working with disadvantaged and low SES populations, this idea is revolutionary and very inspiring.

While all the presentations were informative, the other presentation I really appreciated was Lindsay's. I think it is very important to examine the uses and applications of dominant and/or participatory paradigms and globalization. Lindsay stated that many international aided programs still utilize more of a dominant paradigm (which is ultimately top-down programming) rather than grassroots programs. While this has proven successful in international health campaigns, we can reach more people and have more people be responsive to grassroots campaigns especially given the xenophobia, mistrust and dissatisfaction with "outsiders", Americans or industrialized nations. Granted this is on a larger international scale but I do think it is just as applicable to more local campaigns (an idea that we've beaten to death).

What a day! So many presentations, so much information....but all so useful in their own way.

Health Literacy: A Crucial Issue

This image displays the exact thoughts of many people in the United States, not only recent immigrants, but those who come from low socioeconomic backgrounds. This face is the face many have when it comes to going to the doctor or even hearing information on how to take care of their own health. Like the copy states "Just WHAT did the doctor order?", many really don't understand what they have to do to take care of themselves.

Health Literacy is something that us as Public Health professionals really need to focus on. We sometimes forget that not everyone understands our jargon and that we really need to make sure that the public understands the message we are trying to get across. We need to make sure that we understand their background and learn the best way to make sure the message is understood and implemented. With 90 million American Adults with limited reading and math skills, our goal is to make sure this population are able to understand their medication and what the doctor tells them so they don't go home and treat themselves incorrectly. As we work to make health materials to send out to the public, we need to make sure we use such tools as SMOG to make sure we are not writing way above our public's reading level. Making sure that we tailor all our materials is key, if not we'll end up with people like the gentleman in the image, confused and lost. Therefore, I challenge everyone that once you dive into the work force and begin to create health materials remember the 90 million individuals and make sure that you tailor and reach your target audience, so that we can bring an end to health literacy.

Communicate according to your audience

After reading our class material and listening to the lecture I was reminded of PH 662 and creating a curriculum. We had to make sure that our material was appropriate for the age group we were targeting. We also had to use the SMOG approach. I think it is so helpful to use the Word program. I think applying SMOG can be a bit confusing; however by running the Word program it is really simple to find out what grade level your writing is appropriate for (and it takes A LOT less time to use the Word program vs. SMOG).

I think writing at the level of your audience is something that we often forget about as graduate students and in the real world. We often write to sound intelligent and neglect that our audience may not comprehend what we are trying to express. If I'm trying to create material that targets parents in order to get them to stop smoking inside their home, then I need to find out what level of education these parents have. If I'm targeting parents that hold a college degree I may use more statistics and reference research studies. If I am targeting parents with a low level of education that my have not graduated high school I might want to use a different approach. I may want to use pictures to display my message. For example, I may want to use a picture of a child with an illness due to second hand smoke. I think it is very crucial for the target audience to comprehend the message otherwise all effort to get the parent to change is most likely useless.

I also think word of mouth communication is extremely valuable. When Sheila was talking about doctor referrals and how in Michigan people ask their friends and family who they see and that is how they find their doctor. Well, I just want to let Sheila know that people in San Diego do the same thing. A few years ago one of my friends needed a new physician because her insurance changed and she asked me about my physician. I was more than happy to refer her and praise my physician. It's now been a few years and we still see the same physician.

Since we live in San Diego and we are considered a border town I think it is always important to remember that our target audience might include people that do not speak or understand English. When creating materials for our interventions we should try and make sure the verbiage we us can be translated into other languages. This enables us to reach a much broader population.

Let's Bring it Down a Level or Two

I found the readings for this past week to be important and relevant to our practice in health promotion. I particularly liked the JAMA (1999) article on Health Literacy, emphasizing the surprisingly poor literacy rate of the general public and how this translates into issues with health literacy also. Interestingly, the authors of the article cite cultural differences and English as a second language as a major contributing factors to the low literacy rates in the U.S., given the increasing numbers of immigrants who are in the country. I am especially attuned to this issue as a result of my teaching experiences at a bilingual elementary school in Mexico. I taught first grade students English in the subject areas of reading, phonics, spelling, math, and science. First grade is a pivotal learning year as it is the time when these young students are not only learning rudimentary tasks for the first time, such as sitting quietly in a desk, reading, writing, and following instructions. In the case of my first graders, they were doing this for the first time not only in their native language, but also in English! I learned through this experience, however, how to break language down into its most simple pieces and I quickly was aware of what my students would be able to grasp and what would go straight over their heads. This skill and understanding has helped me communicate with other individuals who have limited English as well. While the general public has a much greater literacy level beyond the first grade (the article cited an 8th grade level) making sentences simpler, with fewer syllable words, short sentences, and basic vocabulary, are all important ways of making both speech and written materials easier to comprehend.

The SMOG readability formula is a very effective tool for health promoters to ensure that materials that are produced are easy to understand. While it may be easier to utilize the online version that calculates the readability for you, the written version could also be implemented. For a project in the Motivating Health Behavior class last semester my group produced a manual for elderly persons and their caregivers to educate about diabetes and physical activity. When we ran the SMOG readability formula, we exceeded our simplicity goal: a reading level at about the 2nd grade! I think that as long as the writing style is mature and not child-like, the simpler the better. I compared my group's success to some of the others who tended to have reading levels of their materials beyond the college level. Certainly, then, writing "readable" materials is not always second nature for advantaged folks such as ourselves.

Finally, I think the next most beneficial point I took away from the readings was that we must include the physicians and other health professionals who relay important health information to patients by highlighting the importance of not making assumptions about what patients understand. A lack of literacy is often embarrassing, and most people don't want to admit that they don't understand. Therefore, it's important that physicians, nurses, pharmacists, etc. take the initiative to review health information with the patient and ensure that the patient understands what to do.

Literacy, interent and navigation

Since I have recently relocated myself to study sessions in Northpark I can't help but notice the advertisements that the state has placed to try and get people to get vaccinated. I am sorry to say I am quite disappointed as they are visually (how do I say this in a nice way) Not appealing! Although during this class we talked about literacy and tailoring down to a lower level for populations to understand I have noticed it's not only about literacy or content it is also visual (something we have not touched about in class just yet). What were they thinking when they came up with the H1N1 vaccine marketing campaign. It seems like they have forgotten that we are competing against multi- million dollar companies!

When it comes to the tangible informational resources that are available it seems to me as though as public health professionals we need to come up with something a little more innovative.

The SMOG test for literacy is helpful when writing educational material. I have taken a notice for websites that are not as literacy friendly. Since the internet has an array of information on it sometimes the websites are also difficult to navigate. For example the CDC website is very informative and educational, however, some of the educational materiel on their is advanced and the website not as user as user friendly. This is something we should aslo consider when coming up with educational material.

Health Literacy and WoM

Unfortunately I had to miss class this week. Luckily, 1) our group is awesome and it appears that we're still on fire in regards to the project AND 2) Sheila posts the slides online!

I think the concept of health literacy is extremely important and one we often forget to mention or collectively discuss. As current students we spend all of our time with our noses in the books and, unless you have a hands-on internship, you become more acquainted with talking in public health jargon rather than knowing how to translate those ideas into relate-able and understandable communication with the general public. And even in terms of the "general public", that whole concept changes once you start looking at your audience. There aren't too many people who know what the heck we mean by reciprocal determinism, but the words we use to convey that message will differ between adult groups and children groups, people with PhDs and people who didn't graduate high school. I did, however, find the comment "low HL islikely to be a major contributor to health disparities" (slide 4). Maybe in class there was more contextual analysis to this comment but it seems to me that low health literacy doesn't necessarily contribute to to health disparities. Instead it is other factors simultaneously producing low HL and health disparities (like low SES). They probably play into one another, but I think it's a stretch to say HL results in health disparities.

I appreciate the use of the SMOG application. It's an easy way to calculate the readability of a piece of literature. Word also has a function now that will determine the grade level at which you are writing in the program. I don't know if it uses the same equation that SMOG uses but it seems to be reliable and I know that other professors in the department readily rely on it for such purpose. [When you do your spell/grammar check click on "options" in the lower left hand of the pop-up box and then check off "show readability". When it is done checking your document, it will show you your level.]

The "hard to reach" population is always of interest to me. As Sheila points out, there are several reasons why these populations are hard to reach. What I thought was marked, though, was that there wasn't a discussion of what Talavera has coined "competing priorities". I think that this is a huge reason why some populations are not welcoming or receptive to some health related messages. In addition to mistrust, low HL, and the other variables Sheila listed, a poor single father of two has deaf ears to a message stating that his health is important and he needs to make time to exercise, or buy (increasingly expensive) fresh produce. My question is, when there are these competing priorities, how do we construct a health message/campaign that can break through these priorities? Maybe that is where SOC and tailored messages for awareness and education come in (though I think you can still argue that they might be ineffective given the aforementioned example).

One last thing while I'm on my soapbox here, I thought the slides on Word of Mouth communication were interesting. I've never really thought about it, but that is how so much gets started through being viral and passed on one person to one person at a time. My concern here is how to construct messages that are simple and straight forward enough so misinformation isn't spread on behalf of what we're trying to do. In 666 we very briefly talked about this, that these messages tend to be short and memorable with an easy action associated with it (Buckle Up!, Friends don't let friends drive drunk, etc) or to have name association. I think that this could be really fun to do! And creative. Essentially you're thinking up a slogan or catch phrase. It could be useful for us to do given our population...just an idea. Not that any examples are coming to mind right now!