Week 10

I don't really have strong opinions either way about PR. Seems like a lot of people in the class are very anti-PR, but maybe only the few who were quick to blog about the lecture (only six people have posted so far) really care that much. Maybe the rest of us are a little less passionate about the topic - I know I am. I do admit, however, that I frequently roll my eyes at the allegedly objective news that I hear on tv or read in the newspaper. Almost all reporters have an obvious slant, particularly when politics are involved. No wonder politicians can go from #1 to #10 in the polls nearly overnight - they are so scrutinized that something they say can be taken completely out of context and blasted all over the media with a completely different meaning than they originally intended. That said, politcians are essentially PR people themselves, especially when they are running for office, but that's another topic.
Anyway, the FEMA ordeal was crazy - I had heard about it before class (fortunately saving me from being lambasted by our guest speaker...) and thought it was utterly ridiculous. Many other PR stunts are also laughable, so I'll just laugh and move on with my day :)

Week 9

Wow - what else is there to say about the fires? Devastating, sad, depressing, scary, all-around terrible. My heart goes out to everyone affected directly or indirectly. I can't even fathom the idea that someone may have started one or more of them on purpose. What in the heck could drive someone to do such a thing??? Since that person or people will likely never be caught, I just hope that he/she/they are feeling so guilty that they can barely take it anymore. But more importantly, I just hope that everyone who had a home that was destroyed is able to rebuild as quickly and painlessly as possible. What an amazing display of San Diegans' hearts through all of this, though. The community has really come together. And the news coverage and other health communication has been phenomenal, in my opinion, as nothing else was even on tv or radio for a few days (on local stations for those of us who do not have cable). However, I have heard a few people interviewed who have said that they were not given word about their neighborhoods' mandatory evacuations until they were almost too late (i.e., the fires almost consumed them). I wonder what went wrong...why were they not made more aware? What were they doing, if not watching the news 24/7 like the rest of us?
On another note, I have come across a few articles unrelated to the fires during these past few days, as I have been wasting hours of time doing nothing at my computer. The first one is about the lack of health literacy among poor people, as we discussed a couple of weeks ago: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071023/hl_nm/india_health_information_dc;_ylt=AvjGA7cSMLBG26qsqDoaD4MQ.3QA
The second one addresses different kinds of ads (e.g., emotional appeal, informative, etc.), as we discussed the last time we met (I think) in the context of the obesity epidemic: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071022/ap_on_he_me/diet_obesity_ads;_ylt=Aqd4fpSDv2qLZ5vUpDYCYX4R.3QA
Finally, the last one pertains to my group's cause (the walking schoolbus), as it talks about the nationwide attempt to get these things started in various locations: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071026/ap_on_he_me/fitness_school_commuters;_ylt=AkD7Hz7pUz_6CH0ZH92M1Xpa24cA
Stay safe, everyone!

Week 8

I don't really have much to say this week for some reason, but I'll give it a shot...
Great job to all of the groups, as everyone else has already said! I enjoyed hearing about the other projects and all of their nuances. Can't wait to see the final products! Hopefully we will be able to gather more info. this weekend for the Walking School Bus target audience. Funny how they say they want our help, but they are really not making a big effort to let us in to be able to figure out how to help. Hmmm.... We want to walk the walk, not just talk the talk!
The exercise on making the decision about saving people or allowing them to die was definitely an example of how semantics can change people's perceptions of and decisions about issues. While our examples in class are health-related, many other realms could easily be used to generate examples. For instance, the odds of winning the lottery are slim at best, but they can be phrased in such a way as to give thousands of people enough hope to spend their money on a ticket. My personal example is of my obsession with The Price is Right (during the Bob Barker era - Drew Carey is not cutting it). Although the chance of winning big - or even being selected to "Come on Down" - is tiny, I still had enough hope to wait in line overnight multiple times in attempt to capitalize on that chance. Somehow the message was framed in my mind that I would be the one to make it to the showcase showdown to spin the big wheel - how exciting! Another real world example is politics in general; the way messages are framed definitely influences the way people perceive politicians, policies, laws, etc.

Article link

Today I came across this press release of a study's results and thought it really spoke to what we discussed in class regarding health literacy: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071011/hl_nm/medication_errors_dc;_ylt=ApkOZcRNhaQQnmWZjTxbuT8Q.3QA
I also read a meta-analysis for another class about non-compliance rates in patients, linking them to some demographic information, type of treatment, type of disease for which the treatment was prescribed, and method of assessing compliance. It revealed an average non-compliance rate of around 25% across the board, with highly varying rates depending largely on the factors listed above. Not surprisingly, people were more compliant with medications for short-term problems than chronic conditions and with medication treatments than behavioral changes (e.g., exercise, diet). Anyway, funny how these things came up in my life when we were studying them in this class!

Week 7

Wow, health illiteracy is a HUGE problem! The statistics were staggering - around 50% of the population has inadequate functional literacy. How scary and how sad! No wonder so many people end up with complications due to failure to comply with medications properly! Actually, I'm surprised that more people are not in the emergency room for such things after seeing that! The part about filling out forms without being about to read them was especially scary. Perhaps asking every single person who reports to a clinic for the first time if he/she can read and understand medical literature would be useful. Maybe not being able to read well or understand medical terminology would not be so stigmatizing if the person at the desk asked in a non-threatening way and normalized the inability to do so. Very trick, though...
Regarding what Danette wrote about in her blog, I have not personally interacted with such populations, but in my Cultural Psychology class last year we studied the Hmong culture's different view of illness, medicine, and healing. Also, I took a course called Religion, Health, and Healing as an undergrad and learned a lot about Shamans and other healers. While these different views do not have anything to do with literacy in the strictest sense (i.e., written word or math), they definitely affect the beholders' understanding of our Western health/medical system and, in effect, the part that they will play in their healthcare. The debate is whether to meet them where they are or to try to force our views of health and illness on them.
Anyway, regardless of all of these other cultural issues, we should definitely strive to make our language as simple and understandable as possible.

Week 6

As everyone else has already said, the guest presenter was extremely impressive. What an interesting topic, and what a fabulous campaign! I really like the fact that we are actually assigned to real projects that will make a difference in the community rather than creating mock situations and campaigns. What a great way to get involved in the health topics of our communities! I am looking forward to the PTA Meeting at Montgomery Middle School this Friday night (even though Friday night seems like an odd time to have such a meeting - I wonder how many parents actually attend...) in order to learn more about the school, kids, and their families. From what I can sense so far, they are very involved and vested in their well-being and are being pro-active in their health and safety.
Let's see, other stuff from class... Listening to others' spill-your-guts about health stories was interesting. I especially liked the one about the hair dresser who spent 5 hours talking and working on that person's hair (forgot who it was - sorry!). The point that Dr. Engelberg made about how people frequently don't really want advice but rather just want to talk and tell their stories was so true. We were trained to use active listening with our therapy clients more often than offering advice because 1) people can usually generate their own solutions if they talk through their thoughts aloud with someone else, and 2) they are more likely to implement changes if they came up with the idea and its benefits themselves than if someone else told them what to do. Sometimes (often) holding back from offering my own opinion is really challenging, but it's usually rewarding in the long run.
Finally, I re-set my settings to allow site feeds, but I am not really sure what else to do with it. I'm still a little new to all of this networking stuff...