Archive for the ‘Disease Awareness’ Category

jseng
John
Seng

Strategic Communications Accelerating Medical Research Forward

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

After receiving the Genetic Alliance “Art of Reporting” Award this past weekend and as the BIO 2011 conference unfolds this week, I wanted to share my thoughts on rare diseases research and how public communications can play a bigger role.

In 2003, Spectrum was approached by the founders of the Progeria Research Foundation (PRF). At that time, we had not heard of progeria, but we weren’t the only ones. People don’t think about rare diseases a lot, but 10 percent of the world’s population has one. And promoting research of rare diseases can benefit everyone.

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Posted in Awards, Disease Awareness, Progeria
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Jamie
Kuchinski

HIV/AIDS in DC: 30 years and still a communications issue

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Last Tuesday I attended the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation panel discussion which took a long hard look at the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S. The panel, “AIDS at 30,” celebrated the progress of the 30-year HIV/AIDS battle, but also questioned how to end AIDS once and for all. While there’s no simple solution, the panel members explored how Americans can prevent the disease from taking more lives and shaving years off the lives of others.

Before the panel discussion, Jeff Crowley, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, spoke about the government’s National HIV/AIDS Strategy’s (NHAS) current progress. Twenty-one million dollars has already been set aside for the NHAS and several departments are coordinating policies and operational plans to address the epidemic. This ambitious plan, only a year old, aims to:

  • Reduce new infections
  • Increase access to care
  • Improve health outcomes for people with HIV
  • Reduce HIV-related health disparities

… all by 2015.

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Posted in Chronic Disease, Community Involvement, Disease Awareness, Health Policy
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Anthony LaFauce
Anthony
LaFauce

Being Part of the Story on the Screen: 3rd Annual Genetic Alliance Gene Screen

Friday, June 24th, 2011

Last night Spectrum had the privilege of hosting a Q&A session for the Genetic Alliance’s Gene Screen and I was honored to attend The Gene Screen, an annual review of films and shorts focused on health and genetics.  The session wasn’t long, around an hour and a half, but it was filled with the type of emotion normally reserved for big budget ‘tear jerkers.’

The list of films varied from personal stories like “Me and Antoine B.” and “Aiden’s Journey: Awareness and Hope” to more traditional Public Service Announcements like “No More Hand-Me-Downs: Research Designed for Children.” But the one thing they all had in common was their strength.

Strength isn’t something that often comes to mind when you think about the process of making a movie, but I was moved by the sheer force of will it took to make some of these films. Film production alone is a difficult, draining process that forces individuals to work long hours, editing and poring over meticulous tasks. Add to that the emotional burden of working on material as powerful and heartbreaking as the stories of these genetic disorders, and its truly remarkable the films were completed.

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Posted in Community Involvement, Disease Awareness, Research
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Anthony LaFauce
Anthony
LaFauce

The Malaria Conversation on a Global Scale & What it Means for Communicators

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

With smart phones and Twitter at the ready, the first annual International Healthcare Social Media Summit kicked-off at 9:00 am EST on May 18th in Washington, D.C.

Spectrum’s own John Seng welcomed all attendees, virtual and physical, including GLOBALHealthPR partners from over seven countries and introduced the four panelists: Aurora PR‘s Neil Crump and Aaron Pond (UK) , PR Partners‘ Paola de la Barreda (Mexico) and Spectrum’s Anthony LaFauce.

Panelists presented data found in an 11 country, cross-cultural case study pertaining to the malaria pandemic and the evolving use of social media as an outreach resource. You can watch the event start to finish below.


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Posted in Blogosphere, Cancer, Disease Awareness, Research, Social Media, Technology
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Spectrum

Cancer Researchers Get Down To Business To Save Lives

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

Imagine you’re a cancer researcher. In the lab, you’re up to your elbows testing how cancer cell lines react to different drug combinations – hoping that all your long hours and hard work in the Petri dish will result in a successful treatment you can deliver to the grandparent, soccer mom, coach or even 9-year-old little league player you see in the clinic.

What if along your road to oncology alchemy, you uncover a novel approach to treat your patient’s cancer with another compound that’s shown success in other diseases. It should be simple enough to get access to this compound and begin testing, right?

In actuality, the process of drug co-development is a lot more complex than that. Breast cancer researcher and clinical investigator Dr. Bhuvaneswari Ramaswamy, of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, breaks down how this process affects her and her patients in the video below.

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Posted in Cancer, Disease Awareness, Public Health
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MitchellSteinberg
Mitchell
Steinberg

Imagine That – Smart Phone Diagnosis

Friday, April 29th, 2011

Here’s a cool idea – a team of University of Central Florida students is working on a smart phone application that will help healthcare workers in remote locations diagnose malaria quickly and easily. Using a smart-phone equipped with Windows 7 and a microscopic camera lens, the app will take pictures of a blood sample, identify and point out malaria parasites, and tell the user how much malaria is in the blood. Because it doesn’t use the internet, the application could be especially useful for a healthcare worker in a remote location without Internet access, such as an African village. The data can be uploaded later, however, to help identify disease trends.

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Posted in Awards, Disease Awareness, Health 2.0, Immunization, Infectious Disease, Medical Devices
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