How and Why Should We "Pin" Public Health?

I regularly participate in the social media for public health (#sm4ph) twitterchat.  The chat (sponsored by the Public Health Management Corporation and hosted by Jim Garrow) explores various forms of social media use and how they impact (or could impact!) public health.  Back in March, the following question was posed to twitterchat participants:

At the time, I took note that several participants (including me) thought that Pinterest could be "the next big thing" (FYI: Pinterest is an online pinboard that allows users to create and share image collections):

Then this week, Nicole Ghanie-Opondo posed an important question to the field:  "Is Public Health Pinnable?"  She does a great job of breaking down all the "stuff" public health people want to pin (i.e., campaign posters, event information, staff photos) and analyzing why or why not it is a good fit for this particular communication channel.  She also emphasizes the key principle we need to remember and revisit in health communication:  

Think About Your Audience!  

When exploring any new communication channel, we need to review available data regarding the demographics and online behaviors of those users (whether it be Pinterest or Facebook or Twitter) and then tailor our content/strategies to those users.  The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project is a great resource for social media user data.

In preparation for this post, I followed up with Nicole to see if she had received any feedback from public health colleagues on her post.  She shared the major theme from her (informal) feedback so far:  

Public health is not creating content to optimize pins.

I thought that was really interesting and it changes the conversation for me.  The question is not: "Should we use Pinterest- yes or no?"  There seems to be enough evidence that Pinterest is a promising communication strategy.  For instance we have: (1) strong interest in Pinterest from the field (as seen above), (2) available data on its users, (3) key audiences represented among users (e.g., women), and (4) colleagues that are successfully integrating this channel into their social media plans (e.g., CDC and Hamilton County Public Health).

Therefore, the question should become:  "How can we use Pinterest strategically in public health?"  This approach would require a discussion of the following questions:

• What audience/s should we be engaging on Pinterest?
• What kinds of content/images are most likely to be re-pinned or shared?
• How can we optimize our content for pinning?
• How are we evaluating our Pinterest efforts? (*Note that CDC's National Prevention Information Network (NPIN) recently had a wonderful webcast on social media evaluation. While Pinterest was not one of the featured channels, many of the concepts and resources would still be applicable.  The slides are available here).

Tell Me What You Think:

• Why (or why not) should we "pin" public health?
• How should we "pin" public health?
• What other planning questions should be considered?
• Please share examples of Pinterest being used successfully (or unsuccessfully) in public health!

More about → How and Why Should We "Pin" Public Health?

Writing Public Health Blogs: Do We Get Back What We Put In?

Last week I attended a great webinar hosted by AcademyHealth called: “Traditional and New Methods for Disseminating What Works”.  One of the speakers was Dr. David Kindig and he touched on the evaluation component of writing a public health blog- do we get back what we put in?  As the tweet below indicates, this is an important question for all of our blogs.

My exploration of this question nicely coincides with the theme for this week’s National Public Health Week- “Return on Investment”.  I was initially going to write just my own thoughts, but then decided it would be a much richer piece if I could incorporate input from other public health bloggers.  The following colleagues were kind enough to send me their thoughts:

Jim Garrow: The Face of the Matter, Public Health Memes

Elana Premack Sandler: Promoting Hope, Preventing Suicide for Psychology Today

Jonathan Purtle: The Public's Health for the Philadelphia Inquirer

Michael Siegel: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary

Thomy Tonia: International Journal of Public Health-Blog 

1. How much time do you dedicate to your blog per day/week/month?

Jim: I wish I could post more blogs per week; right now I'm averaging about a post a week (sometimes it'll be 3-4 posts in a week, sometimes no posts for a few weeks in a row). Each post takes about an hour between research, linking and writing. And I've got to be constantly on the lookout for new and time-relevant material.

Elana: When I was writing weekly, I spent 3-5 hours a week researching, writing, editing, and posting (using the content management software, sometimes the hardest part!). I have a background in journalism, so I'm able to write and self-edit relatively quickly. Now that I'm posting only once a month, I probably spend 5-7 hours a month between culling through stories of interest, thinking about the relevance of various topics, writing, editing, and posting. It's actually more challenging to post only once a month, as I get out of practice and have more material to comb through to see what rises to the top.

Jonathan: On average, a 500-750 word post takes me 4-5 hours. I currently post twice a month. I used to post weekly, but the time burden was too much. 

Michael: Approximately one hour per day, mostly devoted to writing my daily posts.

Thomy: I blog as part of my job as an Editorial Assistant/ Social Media Editor for the International Journal of Public Health. When I was focused only on the blog, I dedicated about 4 hours per week (divided between blogging and visiting other blogs/public health sites- to get ideas, keep informed and interact). Since I now also manage the twitter and Facebook accounts, I have reduced my blog time to 2-3 hours per week. 

Leah: I spend about 5 hours on each blog post- between finding the story, writing, and marketing the posts on social media. Since I try to address topics that are hot in the news that week or that day (like Jim says above), I'm constantly on the lookout for relevant stories.  Throughout the week I save all my possible stories/links/ideas on a spreadsheet and pick the best one.  While my posting frequency has varied over the past three years of writing Pop Health, my goal is to post at least once per week.

2. Who is the audience for your blog?

Jim: The blogs that I write are written for professionals in the fields of public health and emergency management. My thought is that I can affect more change by finding and teaching best practices to the people on the ground actually working with the public.

Elana: My blog is read by mental health and public health professionals as well as laypeople interested in psychology, mental health, pop culture, and suicide prevention. Since I blog on a site that does a lot of promotion for itself, I have a relatively wide readership. Each post can generate 500-2000 hits; I haven't done any real numbers-running, but 100-300 hits on the day the post is published is probably average, and then each post accrues hits over time.

Jonathan: The general public in Philadelphia and surrounding areas. Given the size of the health care sector in the region, I like to think health professionals read it as well. I also dream that policy makers read it—although I’m not sure if either health professionals or policy makers read Philly.com.

Michael: Incredibly diverse audience of anti-smoking advocates, groups, and researchers, smokers’ rights advocates, government agencies, tobacco companies, newspaper reporters, stock market analysts, consumers, trade groups, and policy makers.

Thomy: Originally, our intended audience was mainly public health students, as we are affiliated with the Swiss School of Public Health. However, especially through social media, our audience seems to be not only public health students and professionals but also people who just have an interest in public health. Nevertheless, it is not easy to know exactly who our audience is, as we do not get a lot of comments and it is difficult to know who actually reads the blog. We try to engage people to write guest posts for us. This generally works quite well.

Leah: I write for a broad public audience with an interest in public health, pop culture, or both. Therefore, I use it as a platform to breakdown and explain public health/communication concepts (e.g., "teachable moments"; "cue to action"). From the analytics, emails, and comments that I receive, I know that I have a large following among public health professionals, students, and teachers.  I have heard from more than one faculty member to say that they use my blog with their students to demonstrate the connection between public health and their everyday lives (e.g., movies, magazines, advertising).

3. What is the ideal “return/s on investment” for your blogging efforts? 

Jim: I've been writing blogs relevant to public health and emergencies for more than six years. I've found it to be one of the best investments I've made in my career, even with the huge investment in time and effort required for success.  I've found that the best return I've realized is my network of contacts and friends across the country and around the world; none of whom I would've met without being available and "out there" online.

Elana: For me, the ideal return on investment is reader engagement. I really get a lot out of seeing reader comments (the good and the not-so-good) and corresponding with readers via the comments section, or with friends and more personal connections on Facebook when I promote my posts there.

Jonathan: The ideal return is three-fold: (1) A public which understands that health is about more than just individual choices. A public which begins to see the reverberating impacts of social/economic policies, beyond the health care sector, on people’s health. A public which is knowledgeable about trauma theory and research on trauma/stress. (2) Networking. (3) Increased readership. While this is the most measurable, I’m not convinced it means all that much. Who’s reading? How are they reading? How is the information changing their perceptions? Is it at all? We have no idea.

Michael: The ideal “return on investment” is the blog having an actual impact on public policy.

Thomy: Increasing readership and dissemination of ideas is always a good return. We would ideally like to have more engagement in the form of interaction (e.g., comments). Networking is also quite satisfying and really helps broaden our blogging horizons. As a public health journal, we are also interested in disseminating our research articles.  I personally would like to see more and more public health students, researchers and professionals having blogs and engaging in social media to learn new things, disseminate their knowledge, “meet” interesting people and also –why not- for the fun of it!

Leah: Pop Health began as a hobby that just happened to incorporate my field of public health.  Now it has become a key part of my professional portfolio.  Therefore, the key returns are now different than three years ago.  Now, I'm looking for increased readership and referrals to my site.  I'm looking for increased dialogue with readers and colleagues.  I'm also looking for new and exciting professional opportunities (e.g., guest blogging, writing, and teaching) that can emerge by branding my expertise in this niche of public health.

4. Do you measure these “returns”?  If so- how?

Jim: I've seen a tremendous benefit professionally. As a direct result of my online identity and interactions, I've been invited to more than a dozen international, national and regional conferences to speak on those topics I blog about.  But even beyond those personal returns, I've seen a tremendous benefit professionally. Not only am I able to call on friends I've made around the globe to help with ideas for work, but I've grown as a result of being forced to flesh out my ideas. When I write about something, I want it to be well thought-out and considered. By writing these ideas out, I am forced to consider not only my idea, but how it affects other, larger problems...Without writing it out, I would just have a nugget of an idea, no more than that.

Elana: I measure this ROI very unscientifically. I notice which topics generate more interest (both in terms of hits, which are tracked by Psychology Today, and comments) either on the Psychology Today site or on Facebook. I've wanted to get more sophisticated with Google Analytics, but can't do that as I don't actually manage the website that hosts my blog. I've also enjoyed meeting people at professional conferences who recognized my name because of my blog. That really blew me away - it meant that I was really reaching people (not just my Mom!).

Jonathan: Philly.com tracks usage statistics and sends them to us on a weekly basis. Posts on animals, kids, and pop culture typically do the best.

Michael: Yes, but not formally. I assess the actions of public health agencies and organizations to determine whether the blog seems to be changing their thinking about these issues. I also assess the state of public opinion in the field regarding these issues.

Thomy: We keep track of visitors, time spent on blog (etc.) via Google Analytics and StatCounter. We also monitor the most popular posts and try to have some ongoing themes corresponding to these popular posts.  Regarding the “return on investment” to the Journal, we are trying to monitor whether articles that have been featured in the blog are downloaded more often from our website.

Leah: I have used Google Analytics and Blogger Statistics for measurements like page views, referring sites, and key words used to find Pop Health. I also take note of the posts that stimulate more engagement with readers- I would note that more dialogue seems to take place directly on social media where I market the posts (i.e., Facebook & Twitter) vs. the comment section on the blog itself.  As a result of the blog, I have also been invited to guest write on other sites like The Public's Health- so tracking those opportunities helps me to measure return on investment as well.

Evaluation and Return on Investment are key concepts in public health

With public health professionals constantly being asked to do more with less, it is imperative that we show how our investments are paying off. It is important to think of "investments" broadly- they are not just money...they are our time too.  As you can see from the responses to question #1, creating and maintaining a blog is a huge commitment.  And although we write for a variety of audiences with different goals (ranging from promoting research to trying to impact policy), we share the challenge of trying to evaluate those goals.

Therefore, we need to lead ongoing dialogue about the goals and evaluation of public health blogs. CDC's National Prevention Information Network (NPIN) is continuing its "In the Know: Social Media for Public Health" webcasts this spring and the June 4, 2013 event will focus on Measurement & Evaluation.  I look forward to continuing this discussion there and elsewhere.

Thank you again to Jim, Elana, Jonathan, Michael, and Thomy for your contributions!  I appreciate you making the time and sharing your experiences.

I would like to invite other public health bloggers to weigh in on these questions:  

• How much time do you dedicate to your blog per day/week/month?
• Who is the audience for your blog?
• What is the ideal “return/s on investment” for your blogging efforts? 
• Do you measure these “returns”?  If so- how?

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Baby on Board Badges May Reduce Awkwardness...But Can They Also Increase Safety?

Yesterday many media outlets were thrilled to report that Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge received a "Baby on Board" badge during a visit to the London Underground (the city's subway system).  The badge initiative, first piloted almost a decade ago, was developed after internal research by Transport for London (TfL) showed that pregnant women often felt awkward or uncomfortable asking if they could sit down.  The research also revealed that most travelers believed that mothers-to-be should be offered a seat.  The developers hoped that the badges would give women confidence to ask for a seat and encourage fellow passengers to offer theirs without being asked.

In all the coverage of this initiative, I have (unfortunately) not seen any discussion of evaluation.  The badges are used broadly in London (and other countries like Ireland use them as well).  However, we do not know if they have successfully increased women's confidence to ask for seats or increased a non-provoked seat offer by their fellow travelers.  In addition to these goals, I wonder about how these badges could also be connected to the safety of pregnant women riding public transportation.

This week I had the pleasure of meeting a friend's 11-week old son.  She rode the subway to work all through her pregnancy and we discussed the potential risks that the ride entailed.  While she was comfortable with the ride, her co-workers were often worried about her choice of transportation.  What if she couldn't get a seat?  What if she fell?  What if someone fell into her on the crowded train?  My friend described the experience of having a student's backpack pressed up against her belly late in her pregnancy...which then prompted her to take an alternate mode of transportation to work the next day.

So what if the "Baby on Board" badges could do more than just reduce awkwardness for pregnant women and their fellow passengers?  What if this badge initiative could also reduce the number of pregnant women standing on crowded trains, putting them at risk for falls and other injuries?

First, we would need strong baseline data to determine if a public transportation prenatal injury problem even exists.  Then we would need to evaluate that data during and after the initiation of a badge program in the U.S.  We would also need to evaluate the effectiveness of the badges as a visual cue (e.g., Do passengers recognize the badges?  Do they understand what action they should take upon seeing the badges? i.e.,- giving up their seats).

What do you think?

• Are you aware of research/studies on public transportation prenatal injury?  If so- please share!
• For those readers/friends/colleagues that have ridden public transportation while pregnant:  Did you feel at risk for injury?  Did you ever suffer an injury?
• What do you think about the potential for "Baby on Board" badges to prevent injury?  Are there other strategies that may be more effective?

 

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October is [Fill in the Blank] Awareness Month- A Guest Post for "The Public's Health"

Today I had the pleasure contributing another guest post on "The Public's Health".  The blog is a collaboration between the Drexel University School of Public Health and Philly.com.  In multiple posts each week, the authors highlight contemporary, historical, and ethical matters that challenge public health professionals.

In today's post, I examine health "awareness campaigns" and discuss their effectiveness for improving public health.

What do you think:  Is the public burned out on annual health observances? Or are they effective in helping to prevent illness/disease? In what other ways can organizations and individuals become more action-oriented to help improve the public’s health?

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"Hashtag Activism"- Is It Working For Public Health?

Last year on Facebook, my timeline was suddenly filled with status updates of just one word.  Red. Black. White.  "What is this?" I thought to myself.  It turned out that it was a breast cancer awareness campaign.  Facebook users were listing their bra colors to help prevent breast cancer.  And there are tons of these public health campaigns all over social networking sites.  "Like" our Facebook page to prevent cancer!  "Re tweet" this message to prevent heart disease!  For those of you familiar with my blog, you'll remember that I think "raising awareness" is the most counter-productive phrase used in our work.  It is not specific enough to measure for change and (on its own) it will not change health behaviors.  

So I thought of my frustration with these campaigns as I read a great article in the New York Times this week called, "Hashtag Activism, and Its Limits".  David Carr writes eloquently about the ease of supporting a variety of causes:

"If you “like” something, does that mean you care about it?  It’s an important distinction in an age when you can accumulate social currency on Facebook or Twitter just by hitting the “like” or “favorite” button.

The ongoing referendum on the Web often seems more like a kind of collective digital graffiti than a measure of engagement: I saw this thing, it spoke to me for at least one second, and here is my mark to prove it".

I like that David brings up the question of engagement here.  Many of these public health campaigns on social media just strive for "likes" on Facebook or "hits" on a website or "re tweets" on Twitter.  And not that they mean nothing, but those measures are just the tip of the iceberg in measuring audience engagement.  And audience engagement (beyond "raising awareness") is what could actually lead to public health activism, knowledge change, and ultimately behavior change. Leslie Lewis gives a great overview of Return on Engagement (ROE) on her blog "digital.good".  According to Leslie, ROE measures tend to be more qualitative and measure message reach and spread.  In addition to "likes", ROE also measures things like brand/campaign awareness, comments, shares, and returning visitors. 

I certainly do not think that all public health campaigns delivered via social media are ineffective.  On the contrary, I think that social media is an incredibly powerful tool for public health.  David Carr makes similar comments later in his article.  Challenging his initial skepticism of web activism, he lists several recent "campaigns" that have been quite effective (e.g., the reversal of Susan G. Komen de-funding Planned Parenthood).

However, to use social media effectively in public health, we must be strategic and we must evaluate.  

Some sample questions that I ask program planners:

• What is the goal of the campaign?  (e.g., to drive traffic to your website; increase hotline calls; increase specific behaviors like breast self examination?).
• How will the campaign activities (logically) lead to the desired goal/outcome?
• Are your goals/outcomes measurable?
• Have you thought about evaluation before launching the campaign?
• Besides the ideas listed above, how are you measuring "audience engagement"?

 
 What other questions should we be asking?

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Lady Gaga Launches "Born This Way Foundation" To Promote Safety, Skills, and Opportunity for Young People

Today, in collaboration with Harvard University and other partners, Lady Gaga is officially launching her "Born This Way Foundation".  As discussed on this blog, on news outlets, and in the peer reviewed literature, bullying is a serious problem with potential connection to public health issues such as depression and suicide.  Lady Gaga has been a vocal anti-bullying advocate, and in 2011 channeled that energy into the development of a Foundation.  Lady Gaga and her mother Cynthia Germanotta, founded the Born This Way Foundation to foster a more accepting society, where differences are embraced and individuality is celebrated.

The launch is being held at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre.  Lady Gaga and her mother will be joined on stage by Oprah Winfrey, author and speaker Deepak Chopra, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and esteemed Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree to discuss the vision of the organization, and how we can all get involved.

An academic symposium has been planned in conjunction with the launch.  The event invites researchers, policymakers, and foundation representatives to discuss ways to reach youth and promote a culture free from bullying.  I'm proud to see that my former employer, the Education Development Center, has been invited to the symposium and will share insights from their extensive research in this area.

I look forward to hearing more about the vision of the organization, because although Lady Gaga is hugely influential (at the time of this post, she had 19,773,280 followers on twitter), the strategies and tangible goals for the Foundation are not completely clear from their website.  Under their mission statement, they list three pillars of the Foundation:

1. Safety
2. Skills
3. Opportunity

There is some discussion under those pillars of offering support to individuals through online communities, providing training in advocacy and community engagement, and providing opportunities to bring the national BTWF activities to the local level.  However, there are no details regarding how these strategies will actually be executed.  If you click on "Do Your Part" and "Review The Plan", it simply takes you back to the mission statement.

What strategies do you think could help BTWF support the three pillars of safety, skills, and opportunity?
What outcomes should they look at in order to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts?

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The East Coast Earthquake, Real Time Twitter Chat, and Facebook Applications for Disasters

Well! Today was an interesting day at the office. Up and down the east coast, many of us felt the tremors resulting from an earthquake in Virginia. While I would like to report that we all stayed calm and participated in orderly, safe, and well rehearsed evacuations...that was not the case. It appeared that the shock of experiencing an earthquake (such a rare event on the east coast) caused a little chaos. On my way into my office to grab my bag before hitting the stairs, I experienced a "George Costanza" type moment as a fellow staff person almost knocked me down in her rush to get out. I heard similar stories from my husband who works 4 blocks away. Upon recognition of the earthquake, his co-workers made a beeline for the safest escape route...the elevator?!



After the shaking took us down 13 flights of stairs, I quickly turned to the only reliable source for real time information- Twitter. Since I was the only one in the area who either grabbed my phone or had twitter, I quickly read off what I knew: "It is a 5.9 earthquake in Virginia"; "My colleagues felt it in- Baltimore, DC, Boston, NYC, North Carolina"; "No damage except one broken window is reported in Philadelphia". After being given the go ahead to return to the building and settling back into our work, we received an official text/email from the University reiterating the information Twitter delivered an hour before. According to Twitter's official profile tonight, within one minute of the #earthquake, there were more than 40,000 earthquake-related tweets. They reached 5,500 tweets per second (TPS).



As I discussed in a related post back in March 2011, the question for public health professionals continues to be- "What is the role of social media in emergency preparedness and recovery?"



I believe we are making some strides in answering that question. Just yesterday, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR)- located within the US Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS)- launched a contest: The ASPR Lifeline Facebook Application Challenge. The goal of the contest is to create applications that prepare individuals for disasters and build resilient communities. Those who opt into the application will be able to identify "lifelines" or Facebook friends that agree to be an individual's emergency contact and act on their behalf in case of an emergency. They will also be able to create a personal preparedness plan and share that plan and the application with others.



Even without the formal application, we have seen social network sites be used for checking in with friends/family and for getting information out quickly. For example, I follow the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management on Twitter, so I got the message quickly that our 9-1-1 system was being inundated with calls since the earthquake and we should only use it with a real emergency...for infrastructure damage, call 3-1-1 instead.



While the Facebook application sounds like a great addition to emergency preparedness, it is important to also consider implementation issues which will impact its reach and effectiveness:

• Is the application only available to Facebook members who download it ahead of time? Or will it be available to anyone via the mobile web?
• Do these Facebook members typically update their profile via mobile devices in addition to stationary computers (which may not be available during an emergency)?
• During the emergency, are there cell networks/wifi to support the communication? (e.g., many reported that cell networks were jammed immediately following the earthquake)
• Do these "electronic" preparedness plans need to be rehearsed the same way as "in person" plans in order to increase effectiveness?

The HHS-ASPR contest runs August 22-November 4, 2011. I look forward to seeing the winning applications and hearing about how the dissemination will be conducted and evaluated.



What were your experiences today during the east coast earthquake? What did you hear/see from your colleagues? How did you get/send information to others? Please share in the comments section below.

More about → The East Coast Earthquake, Real Time Twitter Chat, and Facebook Applications for Disasters

Will New Ads in Georgia "Stop Childhood Obesity" or Increase Stigma and Bullying?

On Friday's Today show, there was an interesting analysis of a new campaign from the Georgia Child Health Alliance (GCHA) aimed at reducing childhood obesity. According to the GCHA website, the Warning: Stop Childhood Obesity media campaign "is part of a large-scale public awareness campaign designed to educate Georgians on the childhood obesity epidemic facing our state. Backed by market research, the campaign’s warning messages about obesity are developed to reach parents and children using communication vehicles such as billboards, television, radio and more".

From the Today show segment (which featured the campaign's Director, a child actor featured in the ads, and a child psychologist) we learned that this media campaign is part one of a three part campaign. The three parts were briefly outlined:

1- Raise awareness about childhood obesity; letting kids voice their struggle in their own words.
2- "Activate"- focus on healthy eating and activity
3- Focus on real solutions

While the GCHA outlines their strategic mission for this campaign, they are hearing some major objections to their approach and it continues to grab national headlines. The major concerns voiced by objectors such as Rebecca Puhl (a weight discrimination expert from Yale University), are that the ads will increase stigma for overweight kids (which could increase their experience of bullying) and that the ads will be ineffective due to their fear-based approach. In my review of the ads, I have mixed (mostly negative) feelings about their development and implementation:

• Strike One: The goal of this campaign is listed as "raising awareness". These may be my two least favorite terms in all of public health. "Raising awareness" is too vague and does not lend itself to being evaluated. In actuality, campaign developers usually want to "increase knowledge" or "change perceptions" or "change behavior" (e.g., calling the 800 number on the screen). These are all things which can actually be measured and should be stated more clearly.

• Strike Two: When the Today show asked the Campaign director about the audience for these ads, he replied "parents, kids, and educators". Again, this is way too vague. Your message and call to action (i.e., what you want the viewer to do after watching the ad) would be completely different for each of those audiences. For example, you may want educators to reach out to the parents of overweight kids in their classes or you may want kids to tell an adult if they are being bullied about their weight. These messages need to be tailored to each audience.
  

• Strike Three: These ads definitely fall into the "fear-based" category. As you watch them, the ads read "WARNING" in bold red letters and you hear a "boom" (kinda like on "Law & Order) as the statistics run across the screen. As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, fear-based approaches have been found to be ineffective in other areas of prevention (e.g., alcohol and other drugs).

• In terms of redeeming factors, it does seem that the campaign was developed using formative research which included focus groups with overweight kids. The results of these focus groups were used to develop the dialogue read by child actors in the ads so that it would be "in their words". If kids are the audience for these ads, then the age appropriate priorities and dialogue (with the inclusion of child actors) is positive. From health behavior theory (e.g., Social Learning Theory), we know that kids will respond better if they relate to those in the ads.
  

Of course, it is unclear if they also focus group tested the ads and billboards after initial development, before they were rolled out. It is also unclear how they are being evaluated and what the ultimate goals are (beyond "increased awareness"). I'll be interested to see parts two and three rolled out and hope to include follow up thoughts here on Pop Health.

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"This is Public Health" is now an iPhone Application!

In March 2011, the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) launched a new This Is Public Health (TIPH) iPhone application. It is available via the Apple itunes store. “This innovative application will allow users to digitally place an image of the TIPH sticker in photographs on their mobile device, so they no longer need to have physical stickers with them everywhere they go in order to participate in the campaign.”

The "This is Public Health" campaign was first piloted during the 2008 National Public Health Week.

The TIPH campaign was developed to achieve the following objectives:

• Increase awareness about public health and the important role public health plays in our daily lives.

• Position Schools of Public Health as innovative/effective leaders in public health outreach and education.

• Engage new audiences, including policymakers and funders, in a dialogue about the importance of supporting public health.

• Attract and inspire the next generation of public health professionals through non-traditional engagement tools.
  

The campaign uses stickers with the slogan "This is Public Health" placed in locations around the world to help reach its goals.

The campaign's website clearly shows the reach of the campaign- over 1,000 public health practice organizations, individuals, and other academic institutions in over 45 countries have joined the campaign. But of course (as always), I'm interested in seeing an evaluation of the campaign. It was unclear to me from the website how they define their target audience. I was not sure if they wanted to "increase awareness" of public health among "participants" of the campaign (i.e., those giving out the stickers) or among the general public (i.e., those seeing the stickers in various locations). I was able to track down an evaluation report from September 2009 (which covered the first year of the project). For purposes of this report, data was collected from program participants (defined as those that requested stickers or the campaign video). Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected via phone interviews, feedback from public health groups and individuals, a review of program data and statistics, and an online survey. Here are some key findings:

• The majority of participants [32.7%] learned about the campaign through the ASPH website.

• Educating the general public about public health, increasing awareness about careers in public health and increasing the understanding of the work of a particular institution were the top three goals of those who executed the campaign locally.

• When asked to rate on a scale of 1-10 how effective the “This Is Public Health” materials were in achieving their campaign goals, nearly a quarter [23.8%] gave the materials a 10, citing them as “very helpful” and over three-quarters of the respondents rated the effectiveness a 7 or higher.

• Simplicity and ease of use were what most campaign participants liked best about the “This Is Public Health” campaign.

• Nearly all respondents [92.1%] said that they were likely to recommend the campaign to colleagues in the public health community with almost 70% saying they were “very likely” to do so.

Interestingly, some areas of mixed review were around the program's website, flickr group (pictures), and interactive google maps. There was some concern that keeping all the program materials online because it excluded those without Internet access. In addition, the adoption of flickr and maps depended on the "tech savviness" of the participants. So seeing that their newest addition is an iPhone application, it will be interesting to see which groups of participants are the earliest adopters of the technology. I look forward to seeing the next evaluation report!

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