Category Archives: Public Health


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CDC Asks You to Name That Blog

You may have noticed a fun new badge on the bottom right of SocialButterfly. This badge links to CDC’s recently launched “Gateway to Health Communication and Social Marketing.” This gateway acts as a feeding ground for those looking for resources, tools, templates, case studies and answers to all their questions about social marketing and more. At the very least, it’s a starting point.

Part of this new land is a new CDC  Blog–and guess what–you can be the one to name it! Though, CDC isn’t the only one with a new blog on the market. Ogilvy PR recently launched their Social Marketing ExChange as well (and started an office in Atlanta–as did AED…). I know I’m not alone when I jump up and down at these new steps in bringing social marketing to bear. Maybe one day, with organizations with this type of umph and leadership behind us, social marketing will be a household name. Or, at the least, recognize-able as a profession.

So, what would you name the new CDC blog? Here are some thoughts off the top of my head:

  • Push and Pull: Not only does social marketing combine a number push and pull strategies and tactics, but the blog can also serve as a forum for health communicators and social marketeers to debate, discuss, share and “push and pull” insight and information amongst one another.
  • Influence Health: This is action oriented and speaks to behavior change, but also to the impact and influence social marketing and health communications can have. Influence health could be interchanged with a name like Impact Health or Improve Health as well.
  • The Power of Health. This is what we believe in–if we improve health, we improve quality of life, and therein, increase happiness (in sum).
  • Speaking of Health. I didn’t come up with this…someone who already commented over at CDC did, but I like it too. I feel it’s catchy, frames the conversation for health, is action-oriented and can umbrella a number of topics.

What do you think? What would you name it and why?

PS: For a listing of additional blogs, UNC’s School of Public Health has a strong listing of health blogs, and I have a long list of social marketing specific blogs as well.

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


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CDC Launches Re-Design, Focus on Tools

Today, I received a tip that Monday night, CDC.gov launched it’s re-designed Web site–placing a larger emphasis on tools. I think it’s looking pretty good myself–especially the “connect” icons as I’m a large fan of communicating visually. Plus, icons are fun, right? What about you? What are your thoughts?

I think one of my all-time favorite features is the CDC.gov Tag Cloud. According to the Web site, “[the] Tag Cloud is an alphabetized list of the most popular search topics on the CDC.gov Web site. The text size of the term shows its relative popularity: bigger terms are more popular than smaller ones.” Even better, each term is click-able for information about that specific topic. Here’s a quick snap shot:

It’s simple. It’s user-generated (via consumer search queries). It offers a quick snapshot to what consumers are concerned about in regards to public health. And, thus, it’s powerful. And, it communicates all this and more, visually. For a visual learner like myself, I give it two thumbs up. I’m envisioning that one day, we might be able to update these types of queries in real-time, though from my own experience, I also know it’s going to be a challenge.

5 Ways to Prep for the CDC Conference

*This post was originally published on the blog of iQ Solutions, a health communications and health IT company. Disclosure, iQ Solutions is also the place of SB’s current employment.

Buzz has been building for a while now as delegates, organizers and presenters make their final preparations for next week’s National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media. Hosted by the CDC’s National Center for Health Marketing and the Office in Enterprise Communications, the conference is packed with discussion about health marketing, health disparities, new frontiers in technology, and collaboration.

iQ Solutions’ own VP of Health Communications, Jennifer Isenberg Blacker, will also be presenting on behalf of the National Institute on Drug Abuse about the use of new technologies to engage youth. Senior VP of Communications and Social Marketing, Kim Callinan, and myself will also be there to cheer her on and gain insights from other presenters, as well as share in community with other health evangelists.

As the iQ team preps for our journey down to Atlanta, I’ve identified five ways to prepare for this year’s CDC Conference:

1. Network. Nedra Weinreich has set up a community on NING, a social network that lets you create your own social community. Already boasting 60+ members, this public platform enables us to network before, during, and after the conference, and is how I learned that the CDC program book was available for download.

2. Follow the conversation. Whether you are signed up for Twitter or not, you can still follow the conversations that are happening there. Using the tool Twitter Search, type in the hashtag “#NCHCMM09” to see what people are saying about the conference. I will also be live-tweeting certain presentations and added insights through IQ Solutions’ new Twitter handle, @iQSolutions.

3. Create your own conference dashboard. If you want to be a real superstar like Chris Brogan or Christopher Penn, you can even create your own conference dashboard using iGoogle, Netvibes, or PageFlakes. The dashboard, Brogan explains, is a one-stop online location “to see the elements you might want to know about at a conference…and you can get a fast scan of a lot of data that might prove useful during the event.” Example information may include adding some Twitter search strings to your dashboard, integrating a local map, local clock, local weather information, and much more. See an example below.

4. Meet-Up and Tweet-Up. They say at conferences that some of the best insights and conversations are those you have with colleagues in the hallways or over a great meal. Don’t miss out on these nuggets of opportunity for sharing. Already, CDC’s Justin Williams has organized a Tweet-up for Wednesday, August 12th from 7:30-10:30pm at STATS. This is one more opportunity to gather and meet with colleagues. Already attending are Craig Lefebvre, Andre Blackman, Susannah Fox and myself. Join us.

5. Study. It’s always good to know what you’re getting yourself into. Thus, I recommend checking out the conference’s Web site, seeing who’s who, as well as downloading and reading through the program book. Studying may be overkill, but as I mentioned earlier, this conference is packed with powerful presentations-so much so, that if you’re like me, you’re going to have to prioritize what you can attend. It’s not possible to see every single presenter, even though you’ll want to! (This is another good reason Tip #2 and Tip #3 come in handy-you can catch what you may be missing during concurrent presentations.)

Your Turn: What other tips might you offer to prep for this year’s conference?

Crisis Communications is Hot, Hot, Hot

Crisis communications has always been a tricky conversation. And when social media entered the picture, it fueled the fire. 

Now, within the past week, I have been hit with “crisis social media communications” discussions almost EVERYWHERE it seems. (So much so, that’s it’s starting to make nervous that the social media angel is prepping me for something – what, I’m not quite sure.)

1.  Risk 2.0.   The American Public Health Association held a conference on risk communications earlier this week and though I didn’t attend, I followed on Twitter. I must say the tweets coming out of it were fabulous and really insightful. Seems like many are going beyond the “Ah! What do we do?” factor and more into, how do we manage this, be pro-active and be strategic while also transparent, factors. Check it: #risk2.0

2.  The Peanut Recall Case.  Wednesday evening I attended the Blogging & Cupcakes event at Baked and Wired in Georgetown where social media guy, Andrew Wilson from HHS, presented the peanut recall case study. The case presented discussed how HHS, CDC and the FDA utilized social media in response to the salmonella crisis.

3.  3-Legged Horse Race.  Catching up on Livingston Communications blog today, Geoff recently posted about three sessions that are currently competing to present at the fabulous Blog Potomac event coming up shortly. It’s interesting to me that all these sessions are about, you guessed it, crisis social media communications!

(writing this, I just thought of a 4th sign!)

4. Economy Stress and Eek, oh my!  I work in public health, and this past week there was also some mixed reactions to SAMHSA’s launch of their “Guide to Get Through the Economy.”  Many of my colleagues and friends looked the flurry that unravelled in response to this, and guess what we talked about? Yup, crisis social media communications! (as well as reputation management…who is a close cousin to c.s.m.c.)

What are your thoughts? Have you seen a rise in these types of communications at your own water coolers , conference rooms and happy hours? In the meantime, I’m going to continue to get my typing fingers ready….you never know when the hot, hot, hot, crisis social media communications will come after you.

flickr credit: Cayusa

TIME Health: More than Statistics – Make Health a Priority for the Holidays

TIME Magazine recently published their first cover story in what will now be an annual series titled: “Annual Check-up: The Sorry State of Americans Health.“ Perhaps it’s my own desire to become more healthy, but the timeliness of this article could not be better, especially with HealthyPeople 2020 around the corner.

Reading this article, I immediately got hooked. The article opens with:

If you’re like 67% of Americans, you’re currently overweight or obese. If you’re like 27%, your blood pressure is too high. If you’re like a whopping 96% of the population, you may not be able to recall the last time you had a salad, since you’re one of the hundreds of millions of Americans who rarely eat enough vegetables. And what you do eat, you don’t burn off — assuming you’re like the 40% of us who get no exercise.

These are big statistics. However, I appreciate TIME’s article because it goes beyond giving statistics, but also draws some analysis and connects some dots by providing 5 Truths about Health Care in America as well as an A-Z guide of pertinent health issues. One of the most important points I think the whole article makes relates to the health of future Americans:

Most troubling of all, if you’re like any parent of any child anywhere in the world, you may be passing your health habits to your children, which explains why experts fear that this generation of American kids may be the first ever to have a shorter life span than their parents do.

I find this most important because it’s about more than statistics. No one wants to be a number. And it’s a general idea that we all want what’s best for our children, and future Americans. We know that. But, what if eating breakfast daily, recycling or drinking more water means healthier living habits for those we treasure most – our kids.

ACTIVITY. Flip through family picture albums, or carouse friends’ pictures on Facebook that relate to family gatherings. In terms of health, who are the role-models? It’s not just about healthy eating, exercise and a healthy weight. But who are the kids looking up to? Who has a positive lifestyle, who’s words are positive and encouraging, who is giving, who lives what they say, who has a regular doctor, who has an infectious outlook on life or self-esteem. We should want to be these people.

MAKE HEALTH A PRIORITY. I highly encourage checking this article out in more depth, especially if you work in health or a health-related field. My mother always tells me, “When it’s come to your health, you have to make your health a priority.” This is easier said than done. But, here are some tips and tricks to being healthy this holiday season.

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AT A PARTY:

  • Give away leftovers. If you are hosting a party and there are left over goodies, give them away to your guests. Not only is it an added treat and gift for them, but it means you don’t have to find yourself eating the leftover cherry cobbler and cheesy potatoes.
  • Recycle. If the party calls for a gift, use newspapers as the wrapping paper to encourage recycling.
  • Moderate consumption. Use a smaller cup to fill your drinks, and a smaller plate for your food. This is an automatic way to moderate your food and beverage consumption as holiday parties often mean holiday-type food and drinks that are heavier in fat and calories.
  • Don’t drink and drive. Duh right? But to help curb this behavior, provide a Taxi number for your guests or put one in your phone before you leave for the night. Or, just designate a driver.
  • Prioritize. There is a lot going on. Prioritize which parties and gatherings you need and want to attend. Don’t overdue it by trying to be the top party-goer this season. Plus, wouldn’t you rather have longer, more in-depth conversations with a few new friends, than meet 20+ but only be able recall the person’s name, if that?

AT WORK

  • Take mints, not M&Ms. (voiced from experience) For the candy dish, instead of bringing chocolate-rich candies to work, bring candy canes or peppermints as peppermints is still festive, but also healthier.
  • Focus. Holidays make work even more stressful as you multi-task. However, when you are in a meeting or working on a task, focus and be all there. Otherwise, you are doing yourself and everyone else involved a dis-service.
  • Set realistic deadlines. Put in the extra effort, but don’t overwork yourself to the point you are counter-productive. You can balance this by taking deep breathes, finding helpers, and planning vacation time in advance.
  • Make time for sleep. Again, if you are not rested and ready to take on the day, you will get behind and be counter-productive. Know your limits.

    • AT HOME

    • Create your own health e-card. The CDC has both health e-cards that outline 12 Ways to Health as well as holiday e-cards as well.
    • Cook safely and clean often. Germs and bacteria have a tendency to get around during the holidays. The FDA has food safety tips specifically for the holidays!
    • Treat yourself with time. Instead of overindulging, treat yourself with 15 minutes of YOU time. During the holidays, it’s easy to get over-stressed and overwhelmed. Taking 15 minutes just for you, can make all the difference.
    • Get away from the computer. This goes especially to my social media friends, you work hard all year round. Take a day off-line. No email. No social networks. No nothing. We will all be here after the holidays. It’ll be okay. =)
    • Shovel snow. This is not only a great exercise, but it’s also gets you outside. You can even offer to shovel for your neighbors or for the elderly and make your workout into a surprise holiday gift.
    • Be a kid again. Build snowmen, go ice-skating or dig out that sled. This increases time with the kids, while also providing a workout.

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    What do you think? What tips and tricks have I missed?

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    NIDA and AIDS.gov Join Together in Blogger Outreach Effort for World AIDS Day 2008

    “HIV/AIDS has now become a pandemic that has literally put the world at risk, affecting diverse populations in different ways”. –Dr. Nora Volkow, NIDA Director

    Bloggers Unite

    HIV/AIDS has been a global epidemic for more than 27 years. Most of today’s youth have never known a world without it. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently published national HIV incidence (new infections) that showed much higher numbers that previous estimates.

    On December 1st, individuals and organizations will recognize World AIDS Day. This year’s theme is leadership – from all sectors, including government, but also leaders among individuals and families, communities, non-profits and other organizations.

    Today, on December 1, many of us are joining together through our online activity in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Joining us are two government agencies: the National Institute on Drug Abuse and AIDS.gov.

    Together, they both offer numerous free resources for the public that address the HIV/AIDS issue. This is why they are joining together, along with Bloggers Unite, to harness the power of the blogosphere for good and join in community.

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    Personally, I find this effort important beyond the issue of HIV/AIDS, though I definitely do not want to undermine the issue by my saying that. World AIDS Day 2008 is also important because this (to the best of my knowledge) is the first official blogger outreach activity conducted by not just one government agency, but two. Working together.

    Both the National Institute on Drug Abuse and AIDS.gov are joining together with Bloggers Unite to recognize World AIDS Day 2008 through a blogger outreach call to action to raise awareness not only of the issue, but also of the great, free, public resources both agencies offer. The online Webisode below, provided by NIDA, is just one of these many resources. For more information, please visit the Bloggers Unite Participation pa

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL8rnEVfU-A&hl=en&fs=

    Other resources include:

    NIDA’s Learn the Link Campaign
    Drug abuse by any route can put a person at risk for getting HIV. This is because drug and alcohol intoxication affect judgment and can lead to unsafe sexual practices, which put people at risk for getting HIV or transmitting it to someone else. NIDA has developed the following resources to help educate, share and increase awareness of the AIDS issue.
    AIDS.gov
    The Federal government has developed a wealth of HIV/AIDS testing, prevention, treatment and research information. In addition, the following are some of the many resources you can use to help response to HIV/AIDS.

    What are your thoughts about the increasing rise of government agencies in the social media playground? Thoughts, concerns or comments. I know you’re not shy. 😉

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    Full disclosure: I am leading this effort at IQ Solutions for our client The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), along with AIDS.gov and Bloggers Unite.

    Blog Action Day: What is Public Health? What is Poverty?

    In honor of today’s Blog Action Day on poverty, here is a background on poverty and how social marketing can be applied, as I saw broken down by Philip Kotler himself at the World Social Marketing Conference.

    Additionally, join over 40 of DC’s influential changemakers at Buffalo Billiards at DC’s 1st Changeblogger meetup. We will recognize and commemorate Blog Action Day, connect with Alex Steed’s social change tour, mingle and share re: living and working for positive change.

    What is poverty?

    In researching the answer to this question, I couldn’t escape the purpose behind a campaign by the Association of Public Health Schools and the Pfizer Foundation recently created called “What is public health?” This campaign works to better brand ‘public health’ to the public, while also raising awareness, education and encouraging participation in the public health conversation. Participants are asked to put red “This is public health stickers” on items that they feel represent public health. My challenge: What would this look like if the question: “What is poverty?” was asked?

    Early Solutions to Poverty

    Kotler listed 4 early solutions to poverty: alms programs, workhouses for the poor, deficit financing and economic development. With these solutions, four major strategies reveal themselves to reduce poverty:

    • Economic Growth Strategy
    • Redistribution Strategy
    • Massive Foreign Aid
    • Population Control

    As Kotler continued to outline, he stated the “Two Main Thrusts” used to alleviate poverty are population control (from contraceptive campaigns, to abortions, education of women, industrialization to passing laws restricting the number of children) and improving the support of povert-escaping behavior. This umbrellas micro finance and empowerment, education and health programs.

    The Goal

    As part of the Millennium Goals, the World Bank and the United Nations have 8 goals and 17 targets to alleviate poverty (Kotler). One goal is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by:

    • Cutting in half the proportion of people whose income is less than a $1 a day.
    • Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

    Why Care?

    Everyone hears we need to solve poverty, but my eyes were widened as to WHY we need to solve hunger. And, this goes beyond the humanity of reasons, but puts some more solid evidence to the issue. Kotler spoke of these 6 reasons:

    1. Sympathy and compassion about wasted lives.
    2. Poverty drives some poor people into crime and terrorism.
    3. Poor are more prone to health problems and spreading of disease.
    4. Poor are more likely to follow demogogues.
    5. Poor nations can collapse into “failed states” that cannot pay their foreign debt.
    6. The poor are an untapped trillion dollar market opportunity.

    Why Social Marketing?

    Kotler, along with social marketing expert Nancy Lee, both are literally writing the book answering this part of the poverty question. I personally can’t wait for the book to come out because I truly believe that social marketing provides the right tools for us to solve global issues such as poverty. In the presentation, Kotler identified a 6-part framework as to how social marketing can be applied to the poverty issue. However, in the book, a larger and more developed framework is offered, as well as further context of the issue.

    So, back to the challenge. How would you answer this question: What is poverty?

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    Remembering through Action: The Katrina 100

    The 3-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is August 25th. To reflect and highlight on the city’s current state of affairs and the changemakers within the city, Jerri Chou and team at AllDayBuffet are blogging The New Orleans 100.

    According to the Web site, The New Orleans 100 is:

    a worldwide initiative that highlights and encourage discussion among millions about 100 of the most innovative and world-changing ideas to take root in the city since Katrina.

    The group behind Katrina 100 wants to leverage bottom up tools like the social web to feature under-acknowledged, yet real stories that highlight the positive changes going on in the NEW Orleans since Katrina. The 100 list will be release and posted on the blog on August 25th, and the group hopes to reach 1,000,000 pageviews by 8/29/08. The main goal though, is the make the NOLA100 the alternative media story during the week of 8/25. Wondering how you can make that happen? Keep reading.

    The group continues with calls to action beyond just visiting the site and reading the list. These include:

    1. Sign up to receive the NOLA100 list.
    2. ShareThis. Spread the NOLA100 message and list by email, blog, digg, twitter, stumbleupon and other social options.
    3. Contact one of the NOLA100 changemakers on the list to help out. This can include offering services, volunteering, making a donation, a connection, or extending a simple thank you.
    4. Send AllDayBuffet and NOLA100 new ideas to make an impact. This can include success stories, testimonies, interview requests, highlighting efforts beyond the NOLA100 and more. It’s up to you.

    If you want to really dig in, then you yourself may qualify to join the AllDayBuffet team, and this is the way I see a lot of consulting and the future of business going. Free-agent consulting. And, others seem to agree.

    In this instance, AllDayBuffet is “a social innovation brand for the creative mavericks”. Their key competitive edge, in terms of recruitment, is that their whole strategy revolves around the concept of open participation.”

    This open participation is built in through G3, the Greater Good Guild. The G3 is a global collective of creative professionals that strive to change the world. The network represents social innovators, creative mavericks, change makers and more. To see if you’ve got what it takes, you can apply to be a G3 maverick yourself.

    photo credit: flickr, NOgoddess

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