…culture eats strategy for lunch every day. Now isn’t that the truth? Especially in PR where we put our logical strategic plans up to bat with popular culture daily and hope/wish our audiences hear and pay attention to our message.
Last week I had the pleasure and honor to attend the Health Affairs journal release event at the Capitol Hill Hyatt. This month’s journal was completely based around the #Diabetes pandemic in the United States and internationally with noted scholars such as Dr. Richard Kahn and K.M. Venkat Narayan.
My top take-a-ways:
Top three concepts:
- Start looking at health from a wellness and prevention standpoint instead of looking at health through the lens of disease and illness
- There is a need for community programs to combat pre-diabetes
- Recognize a dual approach needed to combat diabetes – lifestyle and medications.
Top three quotes (who says researchers aren’t pithy?):
- “Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch Every Day”
- “Lack of social support is as lethal as cigarette smoking”
- “WIIFM = What’s In It for Me”
The keynote speaker, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, shared her take on health care in the U.S. and said we need to put the fun back into our health care. Her speech set the bar high for the remainder of the day as panelists began their presentations.
One panel in particular raised many questions and discussion about ‘The Potential for Lifestyle Changes and Weight Loss.’ The three panelists, Kenneth Thorpe, Richard Kahn and Mohammed K. Ali (not to be confused with the former boxer, Muhammad Ali) first presented their respective papers and then fielded questions from a very engaged audience. With the short presentations by Kenneth Thorpe and Mohammed Ali both individuals covered the results from the National Diabetes Prevention Program with positive language. Dr. Kahn threw some proverbial ‘cold water in the hot tub’ (his words) by reminding the audience to take the results with a grain of salt.
