media relations

the guest lecturer we had this week on public relations was interesting, albeit intense! she knows PR like the back of her hand, and really drilled home the concept of keeping the audience at the center of the proposal/campaign. no matter if the audience is a community we're working to change behaviors in, or a media outlet we're working with to further our campaign, the first thing to do is get to know your audience and learn how to communicate with them. she gave some good tips on how to address the media, and how to follow-up with them respectfully. i think following up is sometimes the hardest part of any campaign or study. keeping track of who you've contacted, when, and when best to call them back can be tricky and intimidating when you're ignored. one of the best things i took from our speaker was to remember that this is your job. contacting people, following up, and continuing to press your point are crucial aspects to any campaign. to really make others understand the importance of your campaign and be successful, you have to be persistent!

presentations

This week was really interesting!
It was great to listen to all the different presentations, and see different styles of presentation. I thought everyone did a really good job of communicating their messages clearly. I was way too quiet up there, and should have prepared something more to say! Work to do for next time...

Taking a look at the CDCynergy tool was great. It looks like a great place for generating ideas from past campaigns, and trying to apply strategies for the future.

help the people understand

Literacy was the main topic this week.
We discussed and worked in groups to create simple messages to inform the general public on health issues. Rewording messages that seem simple to those in the health field is essential to getting information across to the public. When our group first tried to create a simple message about climate change, it proved too tricky to just sit down and write something simple… so we had to back up and write a complex version that we could then adapt! Using the SMOG tool to grade the writing samples was great, and I wish hospitals would use SMOG before they passed out information on anything. From medication info to interpreting the results from basic blood tests, they try to make things simple, but the wording can be confusing even for many with college degrees.

Such a basic concept: clearly explain what a person is getting into before sending them off to take care of themselves… I have always had to do that in any area of research I’ve worked, it’s called informed consent! Even though health care providers aren’t running experimental procedures, the informing process should still be the same. Sure, throw out the technical lingo, but watch the person’s reaction when you do that. When their eyes glaze over and they just starting nodding along, you can finish your thoughts, but then bring it back and paraphrase so they can understand. Never just hand someone a piece of paper with instructions and then assume they’ve got it! Most recently, working in a smoking cessation program, all of our information was written clearly on the medications people would be using, and we also sat down with them for ten to twenty minutes to make sure everything was clear. On every successive visit, our first question was if they had any questions! It gave people the opportunity to get their thoughts out right away before being bombarded with more facts and procedures.

It’s frustrating that our health care system is run as it is… the professionals don’t have time to talk to people and make sure everything is clear. Researchers are held to a high standard, which makes sense due to their funding and protocols, but health professionals should strive to reach that same standard. Taking the time to explain information to patients clearly also establishes a strong rapport which encourages patients to ask questions and discuss issues that they might normally be too shy or intimidated to talk about!

whoa!

The most impressive part of class this week was the presentation on hypertension in Hispanic communities. I thought the group was amazingly thorough in their research and testing their messages. Seeing such a great example really helped solidify what we're meant to gather and produce for this project. Granted, Rocio had a foot in the door working with the clinic, but her knowledge of the subject and non-intimidating nature likely facilitated communications immensely! It's a matter of communicating with the masses without overwhelming them, or making them feel guilty, that helps the point stay in people's minds.
I hope that our project on climate change can produce some comparable and effective messages!

We also took a look at a few more segmentation tools and discussed different forms of analysis. It was interesting to look at the Prizm segmentation to see what different groups of people live in different areas. It's pretty amazing that they get right down to the zip code. As Prof. Engelberg pointed out that Realtors often use this kind of information when describing neighborhoods to potential clients, I wondered if there is a print version of this info that people without internet access could request before they move somewhere... it seems like a lot of people would like to know these little details about the area they are planning on moving to; just as most would like to know crime rates/types, but don't know where to look.
Although many of these stats are gathered from census info, it still makes me feel like the man is watching very closely!