Final Blog

Health communications has been an interesting and informative class. Prior to this class, I had no idea how much work went into a campaign. I have found myself noticing that "communication is everywhere" and I now pay more attention to various forms of communication. Through working on the pan flu project, our team realized how beneficial focus groups can be for creating and disseminating messages. Although it was time consuming to continually change our message, strategy, and channels, we ended up with (hopefully) a more effective campaign. From this class, I intend to look into health communication careers... thanks!

Formative Evaluation

I also appreciated the information on careers in health communication. I have really enjoyed this class this semester and would be really interested in going into a health communication profession. The lecture on formative evaluation was also helpful as it showed how the research aspect in health campaigns is a cyclical process. In creating our messages for the pan flu project, we learned the great importance of formative research, as it is not only necessary in the beginning stages of message development, but also during and after. We ended up changing our messages and strategies several times throughout the semester based on the helpful information we received from our target audience. Had we not done any research and created messages and channels based on our assumptions of the target audience, we would have been way off track!

Entertainment Education

In agreement with KDH, I too am convinced that popular culture is the most effective health educator tool. I thought the Sex in the City clip was a great way to work in a smoking message without being too preachy. I am a fan of the show but have always been bothered by how much they have the main character smoke. I thought her date's simple question of, "You smoke?" was very effective in addressing the impact that smoking can have on others. I think a smoker watching the show might reflect a little on their own lives... for example wonder if that was the reason they never heard back from the cool person they went on one date with... or maybe their friends are bothered by their smoking habit but are afraid to say something. I realize its a fine balance to work in the education component into a popular TV show, however, I think with a little creativity it can be done more often. I know I have experienced a negative health effect by watching a show, for example, thinking how good the cold beer looks that the characters are drinking and wanting one myself. As prevalent as the adverse health messages are, I think the creators (with some help of public health professionals- of course), could come up with simple ways to work in positive health choices. For example, they could have a character from the Grey's Anatomy cast do a work out to burn off some stress or have one of the Desperate Housewives give a little nutritional advice to a friend. I'm wondering though, how much do people really take in when they are in the "suspended disbelief" realm of enjoying their TV time and reserving one hour of the day to not worry about anything? If the message is processed through their peripheral mode of thinking, does it have any effect on them, or do they just gloss over when anything informative comes on? I guess that is where selective perception takes into account... as public health students, more attuned to health messages, we are going to pick up more health info, based on the existing importance we place on health... which means, if we are creating the messages, we may think they will be more effective than they actually end up being. I bet Professor Engelberg would say, "That's why we need to do formative research!!"

Exergames

Last week I had a chance to observe and participate in exergames for my exercise psychology class. We went to a local elementary school that hosts exergames for an after school program. At first glance, I was not impressed with the games as it did not appear as if the kids were getting much exercise from them. However, once I played some of the games with the kids, I found they were actually quite a workout! The class room had several different types of games, including Dance Dance Revolution, Nintendo Wii, and stationary bikes with TV screens simulating motorcycle races. The kids were getting great workouts from the games and were having FUN playing them. Part of me felt like the kids should be outside playing traditional sports and getting fresh air, however I also realized that video games and technology are the games of the future. Through exergames, kids can experience all the same aspects of traditional games, such as autonomy (they get to choose the games they play), competence (they gain performance self-efficacy by progressing through levels), and relatedness (they can play on teams and against other peers, enhancing their social support.) I predict exergames will become more prevalent in schools as they are an innovative way to get kids more physically active.

The last lecture of Randy Pausch

This is a powerful speech...

Nature of Media

The media can be a powerful tool to change the attitudes and behaviors of the public.  I found this Dove health campaign website that attempts to counteract the persuasive beauty messages aimed at women.  I thought the designers of the Dove message did a great job by targeting the parents of young girls to help prevent them from going to drastic and unhealthy measures to meet the cultural trends of unrealistically thin physiques.  

Check it out at: http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/home.asp

Identity Building

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Tuesday's lecture. I am planning on doing some extra reading though as it sounds like from other comments that I missed an interesting lecture on the application of formative research and real world examples. In reading Engelberg's articles on brand identity and identity building, I was amazed at how much thought and research goes into proactively planning an identity for an organization. I liked the strategy of writing down the mission statement and then replacing the name of your organization with a different one and comparing the similarities and differences. Sounds like the key is to be as unique as possible to distinguish a valuable market niche to fill. So much strategy is involved with developing an identity since a lot of it deals with the audience and stakeholders' perceptions. Once again, I am seeing the great value in formative research as one needs to conduct identity research to best fit the brand and identity with the mission statement.