Campaign Touts Hurricane Readiness
As hurricane season moves into full swing this summer, the Somerset County (Maryland) Health Department is doing all it can to ensure its residents aren't blindsided by a northward moving storm.
A large part of that effort is directed toward Plan 9: a social marketing campaign that aims to educate residents about potential emergency situations.
TeenScreen Mental Illness Screening in Schools – How Could This Happen?
According to Mr Kramer, in promoting TeenScreen, FMHI worked together with the "social marketing" firm, Roberts Communications, to do a media blitz in the Tampa Bay area. The goal, he says, was to "foster an environment in Florida, beginning in Tampa Bay, which supports large-scale mental health screening programs for teens." Among the "target audiences," listed, Mr Kramers says, "were elected officials, school district administrators, community leaders and mental health professionals."
… The FMHI's plan was to increase the rate of participation in screening. To that end, FMHI agreed to implement TeenScreen in schools, collect information from parents and children, and to employ "Social Marketing" techniques to gather information and determine the most often raised objections by parents to the program.
From this data, Mr Kramer explains, a systematic message and dissemination strategy was to be developed to help sell the program in schools all across the US. He says the bait used to get kids to participate in the screening included gifts like Blockbuster Video cards or $5 in cash or fast food coupons.
Young Adults Foregoing Insurance
Walton was one of four Community Health majors who worked with Carr recently to develop a "social marketing" campaign to find out why local young adults aren't insured and to spread the word about how alliance staff members help people find low-cost health insurance…
In addition to believing they didn't need health insurance, Walton said, many young adults thought they couldn't afford it. They often overestimated how much they'd pay, she said. Others said they were put off by the complexities of signing up…
The students also developed a series of posters, stickers and bar coasters to appeal to the young adults themselves. After testing several, they threw out messages that relied on humor ("Happy 23rd, you're uninsured!"), tongue-in-cheek sexual innuendo ("There's something about the ladies with health insurance") or extreme sports. They opted for straightforward messages appealing to their sense of grown-up responsibility: "Don't go broke" with an X-ray showing a broken bone.
Governor Puts His Heart Into Making Hoosiers Healthier
Here is a plan to make INShape and our state tobacco prevention and cessation program truly successful: Next year the governor proposes a $1 increase in the cigarette tax. That brings in added state revenue of about $339 million a year and decreases the youth smoking rate by 18 percent and adult smoking by more than 4 percent. The legislature allocates $279 million for important purposes -- Medicaid, economic development, or whatever. Another $24 million is assigned to the tobacco prevention program to make it whole again. This would recreate Indiana's immensely successful, once nationally recognized tobacco control initiative.
That leaves $36 million to transform INShape into a comprehensive, community-based program led by the Department of Health. The program is in need of a coordinating "Healthy Communities" civic entity in each county, an intensive media campaign designed to produce cultural change, and the delivery of initiatives and messages concerning healthy lifestyles that reach people in every aspect of their daily lives. Independent governmental and nonprofit programs like FitCity and the Ruth Lilly initiatives could be brought into this larger coordinated effort.
Public health programs designed to create enduring changes in attitudes and behaviors need sustained adequate funding, social marketing, and intensive coordinated programming to be significantly effective. It's up to government to provide that financial support and leadership.
The Greater Yellowstone Area: Conserving a Beacon of Hope and a Western Icon, Together
Four years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recognized the multiple layers of complexity surrounding the aquatic invasive species issue and its limitations as one agency acting alone. As a result, it made several key decisions that produced a much different approach for making people aware of this issue. By combining strategic communications, social marketing and branding processes, the Service, working through the national Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force, now leads a national campaign known as Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers!TM The multi-layered intent of the campaign is unify the entire conservation community to speak with one voice about this complex issue so we can empower all recreational users to adopt environmentally responsible behaviors to prevent the spread of harmful species. By targeting aquatic recreation users, Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers!TM strives to make stewardship inherent in all recreational experiences.
AIDS Walk Raises $3.8 Million
"People from all over the Bay Area (California) came together today to show their continued commitment and unwavering compassion for people living with HIV," said Mark Cloutier, SFAF executive director. "This money will help fund services for those with HIV, forwarding-thinking social marketing campaigns and innovative new approaches to prevent HIV infection."
Technorati Tags: Aquatic Invasive Species, Health Communication, Health Education, Health Insurance, HIV/AIDS, Hurricane Preparedness, Mental Illness Screening, Social Marketing, Tobacco
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