Health Communication
nisbetmc | July 20, 2010
Changing the conversation about climate change: Graduate students from American and George Mason Universities prepare interview tent on the National Mall.
WASHINGTON, DC -- How do Americans respond when they are asked to reflect on the public health risks of climate change and the benefits to health from mitigation-related actions? In other words, if we were to re-frame climate change in terms of localized impacts that people personally experience and can understand--such as vulnerability to extreme heat or poor air quality--could we shift public thinking on the issue? Those are the…
nisbetmc | October 27, 2009The Trust for America's Health and the Pew Environment Group released a report yesterday focusing attention on the public health impacts of climate change. The report is the latest in a series of expert statements on the subject. The most significant finding is that only 5 U.S. states have engaged in planning related to the public health consequences of climate change. Research I am currently working on with Edward Maibach and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation examines how to effectively engage Americans on the health consequences of climate change. We expect that studies from…
nisbetmc | August 24, 2009For DC-area readers who have been following the discussion of climate change communication at this blog, you will want to turn out to Ed Maibach's talk tomorrow at the NSF. Details below. For background reading, see Ed's report with colleagues on Global Warming's Six Americas and the resources at the Center for Climate Change Communication, which he directs. I would also recommend his recent co-authored article from the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. Ed and I are collaborating on a funded project to test different frames on climate change across audience segments, evaluating the…
nisbetmc | May 20, 2009
As we discuss in a current working paper, the "going broad" strategy of using entertainment media to reach wider audiences was first pioneered in the area of health.
For example, working in collaboration with experts, screenwriters for the series ER purposely inserted plot scenarios intended to raise attention to beneficial health behaviors. Evaluation of the efforts found important impacts in raising awareness, discussion, and interest in the featured health topic among viewers. More recently, a special issue of the American Journal of Bioethics evaluated the use of programs such as House…
nisbetmc | May 7, 2009Pew has a detailed run down on the surge in motivation for information about swine flu. The brief analysis goes on to discuss strategies CDC had put in place to be ready to "pull" audiences in when an infectious disease outbreak occurred:
The prominent position of the CDC on these lists may be owing in substantial part to the government's earlier recognition of the usefulness of Google search tools in tracking the actual spread of diseases. Google's Flu Trends tracks certain search terms to estimate possible flu activity at a state level - and it does this far more quickly than the CDC's…