Guest lecturer, PH in the news.

I too agree that Jim Mcbride's presentation was helpful in diciphering the differences between marketing, PR, and advertising. Knowing the differences between these makes the next phase of our project a lot clearer. I also found his templates handout to be very useful. Just last week I was trying to figure out how to write a news release. I enjoyed the newspaper activity. I new we were going to find a few PH stories, but I had no idea we would find so many, especially when we thought more broadly about PH. What really struck me was Dr.Engelberg's question, is the war related to PH? I never stopped to think about it in that way. But I definitely think it is a PH concern, not only for the soldiers fighting, but their families as well. After analyzing news stories this morning and their relationship to PH, I was amazed to find out that PH touches on so many areas of our lives.

Guest lecturer.

I found the guest lecturer,Dr.Linda Lloyd, to be informative, insightful, and reflective. I appreciated how forthcoming she was about her own mistakes in health communication. The whole presentation really brought our discussion of formative research to full circle, especially with poster examples. Sitting there I just kept thinking how could these mistakes have been made, it seems so obvious to test the behavior, test the messages, and understand the problem. I guess its been ingrained in me enough that FR is a crucial part of health promotion. I am really grateful for Dr.Lloyd's presentation. Its always freshing hearing about someone's experience in the real world of public health along with the lessons they have learned.
On another note, I also found our discussion on needs versus wants to be insightful. The needle exchange example made me realize how tricky it can be phrasing and posing questions to people, especially when dealing with a sensitive topic. The key is to find a way to understand people's responses beyond the "yes", "no" answer, and hopefully find a happy medium between the two. This is a lesson and example I will definitely position high on my "top of mind ladder".

Reality Check

There were a lot of great take home messages in yesterdays class. One of of these had to do with a my personal reality check that occurred during the "benefits and support" exercise. When, as a group, we answered the benefit that our target population would get from participating in Project SOL we didn't question our answer. In fact, I don't think we felt that our answer was inconsistent with what our population might really find as a benefit. After Dr.Engelberg's feedback I had a total reality check moment realizing that being in public health really shapes my thoughts and opinions. I mean its kind of obvious that what you study influences the way you see the world. But this realization was more about recognizing how as a future public health professional I always need to keep in mind where I am coming from in creating messages and where my audience is coming from. The other take home message I walked away with had to do with sticking to our core values when making decisions. Again, it seems so obvious but sometimes you just need someone to remind you of these kinds of things. Acknowledging that our core values are there so we can stay grounded, step back to make decisions, and avoid the influence of risk communication, is a concept that I think, as public health professionals, we should keep close to us.

Low literacy is an issue for PH!

It was really eye opening watching the videos on literarcy in todays class. It was incredible to hear first hand accounts of people who unknowingly endangered their lives and health because they weren't able to read warning labels or their prescription label properly. This really drove home a point made in the video; that low literacy stops people from taking action in self care, the care of others, action within the community, and at work. Imagine the consequences of someone not being able to read a warning sign properly within the work place and how that might affect other workers. I wouldn't blame the person who made the mistake, but rather the person who wrote the warning sign/label. Although I can read at an educated level, I know I wouldn't mind health and safety material to be written in plain language. I really identified with the people in both videos. Just because I could read at a higher level than them doesn't mean it makes it any easier when I have to read my insurance coverage booklet, or the lengthy information sheet that comes with prescriptions. This makes me wonder though if its in the best interest of insurance companies, like Medicare, to have patients not understand all the benefits they are entitled too. The less a client knows about their insurance coverage, the better it can be for the insurance company. Well, this is at least my hypothesis of the day.