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.