Tag Archives: prevention

Is Public Health a Competition?

The NY Times recently published an article titled, “Tobacco Funds Shrink as Obesity Fight Intensifies,” pitting anti-smoking public health folks against anti-obesity public health folks. The NY Times asked us, in short: Should we focus on addressing obesity over anti-smoking efforts? Is this the right thing?

David Katz, Director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center, published a response via the Huffington Post to examine the “this vs. that” and “right vs. wrong” approach the NY Times took–and asked another question: What choice are we really making?

Now, this is an important one. The NY Times article does do a great job in bringing up the debate: What are our nation’s health priorities? Katz brings up a second good point: How do you divvy resources amongst these health priorities to get the most juice from the squeeze (so to speak)?

First–> Disclaimer–In the words of Katz, I too, am not prepared to answer the NY Times’ question of this or that because I don’t fully know–but then, who does? That said, I have two additions to Katz’s suggestions:

1.  Katz first suggests “conduct modeling exercises to determine what general allocation of research and policy dollars — across an array of conditions, behaviors, and even types of research — would most improve our health over a defined period of time.

To this, I say, that we all need to get more involved and clued into the Healthy People 2020 initiative that is run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (disclaimer:  This project lies within  a client of my employer that I work on). This is a collaborative, science-based approach to setting 10-year national health objectives to promote health and prevent disease. So, when we are talking “this or that” or about our Nation’s health priorities, Healthy People 2020 is a good start. (Stay tuned, in December the Healthy People 2020 objectives will be released along with guidance for achieving the new 10-year targets).

2. Secondly, Katz suggests that we need to be more “holistic.” Going on to say, “A healthy person is healthy…Recent studies have shown that people who don’t smoke, eat well, are active and control their weight are roughly 80 percent less likely to get ANY major chronic disease than their counterparts who do the converse in each case…So, a healthy person doesn’t smoke. A healthy person eats well. A healthy person is physically active.

I couldn’t agree more and this is why–I don’t feel it needs to be an either-or type of situation. It can be all the above. Healthy living (aka living a healthy lifestyle) can be defined by a number of behaviors such as:

  • Not smoking
  • Eating Right
  • Being active

One could argue that other behaviors could be umbrella-ed into healthy living such as getting immunizations or getting preventive screenings. Thus, the message could not just be anti-smoking or anti-obesity, but instead, be about promoting a health lifestyle which encompasses a set number of behaviors. This should be our focus. Thus, I leave you with the same question Katz asks at the conclusion of his Huffington Post article:

What interventions for individuals, families, schools, worksites, communities and more will encourage, promote and empower the adoption and maintenance not of some single preventive strategy, but of healthful living?

flickr credit: lets.book

Questions to Prevent Awareness Fever

They know about us, who cares if they don’t buy? Would any company ever say this?? Hey, we spent $5M, and made $1M–but at least more people know about us–look at all the awareness we got. No, they would not. Better phrased, they would not be satisfied with that answer. They’d want more information. They’d look at the whole product cycle–from development, to placement, to price, to promotion and beyond.

So, why, fellow health marketing and do-gooders do we settle with “awareness-building?” To be frank, every time I’m in a meeting and I hear the word awareness, my skin crawls. Awareness is great–but there’s a time and place for it. I’m aware of Ritz crackers, but I buy Wheat Thins. I’m aware of Powerade, but I buy Gatorade. There are times I might know about your cause–but I won’t donate. Other times I might know you need help, but I won’t volunteer. I know exercise is healthy, yet I’m still sitting here typing this blog post. There is a reason to these behaviors and decisions. There are motivations, barriers, incentives, costs, and more.

If our friends in the private sector won’t settle, we shouldn’t either. Thus, in the comments, let’s suggest questions to ask when awareness fever strikes our next meeting. Ready, Set, Go.

Questions to Prevent Awareness Fever

  1. How do we turn awareness into action? submitted by Holly Grande
  2. How do we measure awareness? submitted by Holly Grande
  3. What does awareness mean for the campaign? submitted by Holly Grande
  4. So, what do we want people to do with all that awareness? submitted by Mike Newton-Ward
  5. Why do you want to increase awareness in the first place? submitted by Steve Radick
  6. Why does the general public need to know what your division/branch/organization is doing? submitted by Steve Radick
  7. Why should people care? submitted by Steve Radick
  8. When did awareness change anything? submitted by Craig Lefebvre
  9. How can we move people towards action? submitted Fard Johnmar
  10. What are you really offering people that’s new in exchange for the change you want in their routine? submitted by Peter Mitchell
  11. How are you so sure people don’t know this already? submitted by Peter Mitchell
  12. Are people seeking out this kind of information? submitted by Peter Mitchell
  13. Wouldn’t it be better to offer people something they already want? submitted by Peter Mitchell
  14. who is already aware, and what they need in order to move them along to the next stage on the path to taking action? submitted by Nedra Weinreich
  15. Is awareness given, but no action taken? submitted by Christiane Lellig
  16. Is awareness of the sender’s problem necessary for audience to take an intended action? submitted by Christiane Lellig
  17. Once we raise awareness in the room, what ACTIONS are the people in the room going to take in their lives? If we can’t answer the question, START OVER with a new plan. submitted by Mike Domitrz
  18. Your turn. Yes, you–the person nodding their head who’s frustrated with this very same thing. I know you’re out there. (I’ll update this list below with your questions and give you some link love.)

flickr credit: Leo Reynolds

Some Golden Nuggets of Social Change

In between turkey and tweeting, I caught up on some of my online do-gooders, as well as explored and discovered new (and highly valuable) minds who are doing good. Thus, this post is filled with some true golden nuggets of social change. Enjoy!

  • Find new friends in this list of the top 100 Social Entrepreneurship Tweeple to follow, put together by @socialedge, a program of the Skoll Foundation. What I love most, is that this post also gives you a great listing of hashtags and what their purpose is as well.
  • Speaking of @socialedge, I discovered that they host weekly live discussion around numerous social change topics, including this one: What works in social change? Feel free to give input based on your knowledge and experiences–I did.
  • Can prevention PROSPER? Read up on this prevention program–backed by the CDC, NIDA and the Annie E. Casey Foundation–whose trial shows a $10 payback on every $1 invested. Now, it’s getting ready to go national.
  • Going to be in D.C. on February 12? If so, you may be able to catch the Non-Profit 2.0 Conference organized by Geoff Livingston, Shireen Mitchel, and Allysin Kapin.
  • Even though I did my own research on millennials for a project I did for Special Olympics Missouri, it’s always good to see what others found out as well.  Those at Millennial Marketing put together a FREE e-book titled “Marketing to Millennials.”
  • On someone’s Twitter list and you don’t want to be? Read up on how to opt-out of someone else’s list through this back door trick.
  • Have some doubters in your presence? Share Valerie Maltoni’s free e-book, Twittertales, a collection of Twitter success stories.
  • Seeing the time of giving is upon us, check out this article on Barron’s that lists the Top 25 Philanthropists.
  • Keeping with the giving theme, did you know you could start a fundraiser with wine? Find your favorite charity or rally friends around one–and buy some wine in support of it. I discovered this while doing my own holiday shopping, so I wanted to share the idea with others. Think goodsearch–just with wine.

People Doing It Right (hat tip to Chris Brogan)

  • Health Populi. Written by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, I find just about every single post of hers helpful, thought-provoking and insightful. Lately, it’s become a blog staple–the kind that you can’t wait to read when you see there’s a new post in your RSS reader.
  • Prevention in Action. With its focus on prevention and research–how can you not be a fan of this organization’s news content? They are writing about topics not everyone writes about, pulling evidence, timely events and research together in a way that gets the mind ticking.
  • 501derful.org. We all already know he’s doing it right seeing as David Neff won AMA’s Non-Profit Marketer of the Year award. But with Neff’s recent announcement that has left the American Cancer Society to pursue his next big adventure, I’ve been staying tuned to his blog ever more closely as I admire his leadership and courage to follow his passion of Lights. Camera. Help.

What about you? What golden nuggets did you discover over the holiday?

flickr photo credit: Curtis Gregory Perry

Social Marketing: Smokey Bear’s Makeover

Get your smokey on. This is the tagline for a new campaign sponsored by the Ad Council, USDA Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters.

It’s also the tagline for the first social marketing campaign highlighted in my campaigns series. I chose this campaign not only because of its relevance and timeliness, but also because of some of the social media promotional components integrated with the campaign.

Meet Smokey Bear: Born in 1944, a time when firefighters were serving in the war effort. Thus, fire prevention became a key wartime issue. In 1944, 22 million acres of land were lost with 9 out of 10 forest fires were accidental. Most of Smokey’s campaigns focused on specific fire-prevention behaviors with the message, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

Smokey Bear’s Make-Over: Today, Smokey Bear wants others to “Get Your Smokey On,” encouraging others to take on Smokey’s characteristics of encouraging others to practice fire safety behavior and to even intervene if necessary.

Background Research: According to the Ad Council, an average of 6.5 million acres of U.S. land was burned by wildfires every year for the past 10 years. Research also shows that many Americans believe lightning starts most wildfires. However, 88% of wildfires nationwide are started by humans. The principle causes are campfires left unattended, trash burning on windy days, careless discarding of smoking materials and BBQ coals and operating equipment without spark arrestors.

Objective: To encourage the target audience to sign the “Get Your Smokey On” Wildfire Pledge,” where signers pledge to “Be smart whenever I go outdoors.” The pledge also outlines 9 points of safety behaviors and beliefs that the reader agrees to follow.

Audience: The primary audience are adults aged 18-35 who are causal campers, hikers and bikers.

Campaign Components

  • Online
    • Interactive Website
    • An Online Pledge
    • Downloads: Print your own Smokey Bear mask
    • Educational Information
    • A Mash-up Map showing where wildfires are currently burning in the U.S.
    • A live tracker for how many acres have burned in the U.S. so far this year
    • Online Kid’s games
    • Campaign History
    • View the PSAs online
  • Commercials/PSAs

Evaluation: The Smokey Bear campaign has always been evaluated based by the reduction in the number of acres lost annually in fires and based upon the campaigns recognition. Smokey Bear is currently the most recognizable image in the U.S., after Santa Claus.

Creator: Made pro-bono by DraftFCB. In the close future, Smokey will also be featured in PSAs alongside Sleeping Beauty created in partnership with The Disney Company .

Social Marketing Rating: According to the social marketing wiki, this initiative meets the requirements for social marketing. However, on the wiki it is argued that it’s not very good social marketing stating that the online pledge mixes behavior and non-behavior objectives and is too long for readers to actually follow. It’s review goes on.

However, I think it’s a great awareness and promotional campaign. In terms of taking a complicated issue, research and statistics and communicating it, especially online. I think the campaign has two most powerful components:

  1. The mash-ups outlining statistics. This makes the issue real, alive, relevant…and local.
  2. The message that an individual can be empowered as an advocate.

What do you think? What’s your analysis?

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