David Tuller, coordinator for public health and journalism at the UC Berkeley (Go Bears!) School of Public Health and the Graduate School of Journalism, points out the need for better public health branding in the wake of the health care reform bill:
Beyond ensuring access to insurance, the new legislation incorporates an expansive view of health and well being–or at least a view more expansive than we’re used to. It acknowledges the obvious: that maintaining healthy communities means more than providing medical care for individuals, however crucial that step. (more)
For the first time in a long while, we’ve got the President and Congress on the public health bandwagon. But what about the American public? Tuller mentions a 2001 survey in which 80% of Americans did not think that public health had touched their lives in any way. He posits that this is because when public health is working as it should, it’s largely invisible.
The health care reform legislation (while admittedly far from perfect) includes funding for lots of great public health stuff, like menu labeling and mandates for insurers to cover preventive services. As health educators, marketers and communicators, let’s make sure our public health efforts don’t go unnoticed.
An initiative of Volkswagen, The Fun Theory proposes that “something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better.” The idea might be tongue-in-cheek social marketing from the car company, but their videos like “Piano Staircase” should be giving the public health world pause. In the German experiment, reportedly, 66% more people chose to take the musical stairs over the escalator.
The Fun Theory has also given awards to the ideas and inventions that help prove the fun theory – that fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better. We love the award entries like the Pinball Exercise Machine and Fighting Germs with Fun for showing us how a little fun can be applied to serious problems like obesity and flu control – and for reminding us that healthy behaviors can be fun, too.
More people are going online for health information than ever before. And more health information and services are moving to the Web. At the same time, we know that 9 out of 10 adults in the United States have limited health literacy skills.
So how do we help people with limited health literacy skills find and use health information on the Web? And how do we make Web sites easier to use for the millions of older adults who are going online for health information for the first time?
For answers to these questions and more, the CommunicateHealth team enthusiastically recommends this research-based guide to writing and designing user-friendly health Web sites from the US Department of Health and Human Services. (Yeah, okay – we helped write it.)
The guide is full of examples, tips, and tested strategies to help you write and design health Web sites that are easier for your Web users to understand. The 6 strategies described in the guide are:
Learn about your users and their goals.
Write actionable content.
Display content clearly on the page.
Organize content and simplify navigation.
Engage users with interactive content.
Evaluate and revise your site.
Are you using these strategies to improve your organization’s Web site? If not, let us know — we can help!
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released The National Plan to Improve Health Literacy – with support from Sebelius and others who see the relationship between improving health literacy and increasing access to cost-effective, high-quality health care.
The action plan contains seven goals, each with specific strategies for different sectors of the health system, such as payers, the media, government agencies, and health care professionals, to improve health literacy. These goals emphasize the importance of creating health and safety information that is accurate, accessible, and actionable. (Read the full press release from HHS.)
“We each have a role to play in improving health literacy,” notes CommunicateHealth co-founder Stacy Robison, who served as a contributing editor of the National Action Plan. “Improving the way public health professionals and the media communicate health information will go a long way toward achieving our goal of a health literate society.”
David Tuller, coordinator for public health and journalism at the UC Berkeley (Go Bears!) School of Public Health and the Graduate School of Journalism, points out the need for better public health branding in the wake of the health care reform bill:
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