Today, Amanda Sellers shared the results of our global awareness campaign at the 2010 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) fourth annual National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media. The "Find the Other 150" campaign "found” 24 percent more children with a rare, fatal, and rapid aging disease called Progeria, a disease affecting less than .01% of the world’s population. In creating and carrying out the campaign for The Progeria Research Foundation, Spectrum collaborated with partner firms in 10 countries through GLOBALHealthPR, the largest independent public relations group dedicated to health communications worldwide. Reaching out to media and medical professionals with culturally relevant and strategic communications methods, as well as using online tools such as the campaign website (www.findtheother150.org), the awareness generated more than 20 inquiries to PRF about potential children with Progeria in six months. From these inquiries, 13 new children with Progeria were identified from seven countries, increasing the total number of children known to have Progeria worldwide to 67 (a 24 percent increase). Watch below to hear more about the campaign from Amanda Selllers and click here to view the campaign poster and press release.
Archive for the ‘Community Involvement’ Category
LaFauce
Top Tips for Hospitals and Doctors to Achieve Positive Feedback with Social Media
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
I was recently featured in an article on AMED News and ReachMD (12:45) talking about how doctors should handle negative posts by patients on social media sites. I stated that doctors should never go on the offensive against negative postings and instead should work on “getting on top” of negative messages.
The principle is simple; you can never make everyone happy all the time so by nature some people will post negative messages. If you’re a good hospital or doctor, many of the patients you serve are happy with the work you do. Therefore, as a good practitioner or facility, if you give patients an opportunity to speak positively about you they will. More positive messages will always drown out negative messages.
Think about it like this, if you see a Yelp posting about a restaurant and 15 people say it's great and one say it’s terrible… Who are you going to believe?
LaFauce
Mobile and Health Work Hand in Hand
Friday, May 21st, 2010Last night I had the privilege of attending a Washington Health 2.0 event at The Barking Dog in Bethesda, MD. The night was full of both tech and health care folks talking about great projects they have worked on. Great food, drinks, and digital/health conversation were on the menu but my interest was sparked by two particular presentations.
Doug Naegele, CEO of Infield, gave a great presentation focused on using mobile in developing nations as an ad hoc field hospital. The long and short of it is this, in nations where hard lines and hospitals are at a minimum, innovative people can use the MMS and live video feeds from even the most basic cell phone to provide doctors in other regions with important information for diagnosing.
Doug also mentioned how creating an innovative text to phone program allowed users to request a free phone call from a friend if the text message was sponsored by a non-profit interested in providing health care information. Viewership on the host site went up 140% in a relatively short period.
Poarch
A Food Revolution as a Real Solution
Friday, April 2nd, 2010Recently, I attended a briefing hosted by the journal Health Affairs, which dedicated their March issue to the childhood obesity crisis in America. Among the research that was examined during the briefing, the same statistics rang loudly and clearly:
- Nearly one-third of U.S. children and adolescents ages 2 - 19 (more than 23 million youth) are overweight or obese
- Kids are spending less time doing physical activity and more time sitting in front of the TV, computer or video games
- Overweight kids are more likely to become overweight adults
While the obesity epidemic is an issue for Americans of all ages, it was particularly troubling to learn how early this becomes a serious issue for kids. Susan Dentzer, editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, noted, "Kids are becoming obese or overweight at the ripe old age of four, meaning that they are already predisposed to shorter, sicker lives from diabetes, heart problems, even certain types of cancer." (more...)
Walsh
USDA Secretary Discusses Child Nutrition Programs
Friday, February 12th, 2010Amidst D.C.'s "snowpocalypse," Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack managed to hold three teleconferences this week. The first was brief and followed on the heels of Mrs. Obama's unveiling of her Let's Move campaign. He along with Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan discussed their agencies' commitment to a healthier future.
The second teleconference, headlined by only Secretary Vilsack, provided an overview of the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act (CNA). According to Sec. Vilsack, the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act has twin problems: 16.5 million children live in households that suffer from food insecurity, which creates a hunger issue. At the same time, we have an epidemic of childhood obesity - one-third of our nation's children are obese or overweight. The result: high health costs and low productivity. (more...)
