Week 15

Thank you Dr. E for the insight in types of potential jobs. I wish every class would do that. It is so helpful to learn what is out there that maybe you haven’t heard of before. I think informational interviews are a great idea; I plan to do some myself in the Spring. I have had friends in the past who did informational interviews and pretty much were offered a job. Takes a lot of the pressure off you, but if they like you, they may ask you to come back, perhaps at that point they have already made up their mind about how much they like you.

I also thought the Return on Investments (ROI) was interesting. I liked the tip for an interview, “if you invest $50,000 in me in your first year, this is what I’ll do for you…” Also, it is funny how there is this stigma that there is no money in the P.H. field. Just last week I was out in the field conducting measures for my job and a mom asked me what I was getting my degree in. When I told her P.H. her immediate response was, “you know you’re not going to make any money, right.” Now I know, my response can be, “just because we may not make a lot of money, doesn’t mean what we do isn’t a lot.”

Playing the evaluation “game”, I learned that before you ask for more money or resources, your employer is going to want to see a product. So, I feel it is best to show them what you are able to put together with the budget and time available and then you can tell them, if you want more detail or more info, we’re going to need more money or time or resources. Also, it is important to use own skills within the business before hiring out, unless maybe it will take much longer and you’re in a time crunch.

For the last class and last blog of the semester I will end with this great quote:
“The answer is money, where’s the question?”

Week 14

Again, presentations were great everyone. I think a huge improvement from the first ones. I was quite impressed with many group’s posters… they looked so professional compared to my group’s. It really does make me want to go out and get involved. It makes me want to get the flu shot (I never have before), volunteer with Shakti, apply for food stamps, and use the trolley more than I already do. It also frustrates me that my apartment complex doesn’t have recycling. I mean seriously, these days who doesn’t have recycling? and there are over 1,000 apartments. We could save a lot. I just might have to write a letter to management. Anyway, thank you everyone for inspiring me!

Week 13

I really like this topic of Entertainment and Popular Culture. Sometimes I think it is easier to learn or remember something when you are being entertained by something you choose, whether it be a movie, TV show or song. It can be easier to learn when you have something to relate the message to, like a story or character. In class we don’t usually pick the lecture topic and even if it is of interest, it can be easy to forget when a professor is standing in front of the class preaching to you. But the idea of people learning by putting health topics out there in popular shows or movies I think is brilliant. The popular shows reach thousands of people and they are choosing to watch the show, it is not as if we are “forcing” this topic on them. I would venture to guess that many don’t even realize that they are learning about health while watching an episode of Friends, 90210 or as Laura mentioned Saved By the Bell, yet they will remember how Rachel, Donna, or Slater handled a situation. The only problem, which is a huge problem, is when the writers give false information. Even so I think it is a good way to get people talking and to get messages out there.

I also thought the idea of the communication contract was interesting. We learned that the persuasion contract is when the message is to persuade someone about something and the consumers job is to evaluate the message. Dr. E used the example of going into a used car lot and a salesperson approaches you. They are going to try to talk you into buying something and immediately the customer is a little defensive and has their guard up. The other type of contract is the entertainment contract. Their job is to give you a good time, where the customer’s job is to suspend disbelief. The example in class was going to the movie theater. You are there to be entertained, perhaps you are there for comedy. So their job is to entertain you with humor. Immediately you go into it with open arms and your guard down. This is important to think about when we’re promoting health and trying to get out health messages. We don’t want to approach it so that people have their guards up from the beginning. We want them to have an open mind about it, so we have to give them what they want (i.e. comedy).

Week 11

The internet is brilliant, we have just about everything we need at our fingertips: information, news, how to lose weight, Christmas shopping, communication tools, work, grocery shopping, etc. it is endless and virtually there is no reason to have to leave our homes. How lazy is that!? All we need is a spoon and someone else to put it in our mouth. What ever happened to being resourceful… I mean in the sense of going to the library to find a book or a journal. My entire lit. review could be done without leaving my computer. So instead of searching the library I am searching for a new coffee shop that offers free WiFi. Sad. The unfortunate part of the internet is not only that people are being lazy and the obesity epidemic is on the rise, but that people aren’t seeking out alternative forms of communication for information. We get so used to clicking the mouse, often I think we forget other things exist.

Just to vent for a minute, Sunday night I was trying to reserve a plane ticket to Oregon for Christmas time with a $100 voucher that I had. (FYI I got the voucher because last time I flew United they canceled my plane and said I couldn’t fly out until 24 hours later!) Apparently you cannot use the gift certificate online. So I had to call customer service. Well, now that everything is automated these days it took me 30 min. to talk to a real person. The connection was terrible so the man could not hear me very well, so that was another disaster trying to give him all of my information. So an hour later I finally get the ticket, or so I thought, and THEN he tells me that in order for me to actually get the ticket I have to go to the airport within 24 hours to retrieve the ticket!!! Are you kidding? So Monday morning I go to the airport, pay to park and stand in line forever. I finally get helped and something is wrong, my confirmation # isn’t right, nothing is coming up. Another hour later I finally get a PAPER ticket (who uses paper tickets anymore anyway?) of which I will probably lose in the next 2 months. IF ONLY I COULD HAVE GOTTEN THE TICKET ONLINE!

As far as Public Health is concerned I think that since the Web 2.0 (or higher) is where the world is going, we might as well and use it to our advantage as health promoters and get out there and make the most of it, like it or not. I agree that the internet can cause confusion, especially because there are all different levels of education, literacy, etc. With that much info. how do you know what is true and what isn't. Some know what to believe and what may need to be looked into a little deeper instantly. Others are more gullible, like me, if it seem like it makes sense and it sounds like a credible source I buy into it. I think the other thing we run into with the web is that we might be heard, but are we heard by the people we want to hear us?

Week 10

Well, last week was quite the week for me. Being from Oregon, I’ve never really been apart of a natural disaster like the fires in S.D. last week, I mean the worst we have is a downpour of rain 9 months out of the year. It is possible to have thick fog, hail or perhaps a little flooding, but where I grew up and did my undergrad they NEVER closed school. I’m pretty sure we all fell walking around campus due to the layers of ice in the winter, but they would never close campus for just a little black ice. Side note: I’m pretty sure if San Diego got ice, campus would probably be closed because people would think it is another natural disaster. Have you seen people drive here in the rain? Okay, at least those out-of-staters know what I am talking about. A little off topic and I’m not trying to make light of the seriousness of these fires nor devastation that occurred here last week. I was a lucky one who lives in Mission Valley and was not directly affected by the fires, however, the first couple days I think was a little scary for everyone. It is so strange to me to try to think of the most important things I have that I would want to take with me if I would have had to evacuate. The most random things came to mind first. I mean seriously, do I really need band aids? I’m not buying those darn text books again! Anyway, my heart goes out to the families who lost their homes, pets and animals and to the firefighters (I had friends out there), police, military and volunteers for their continued hard work in battling the flames and getting people out of harms way. It is also interesting what Dr. E said in class on Monday, referring back to the river analogy from the first week. The first few days the news was all that was on TV, then regular programming started coming back slowly and now it is fairly normal, but still very popular in the news. It is just interesting how the media works, it was very full last week with fire information, and soon it will be fairly non-existent.

In addition to last week’s fires, I lost my 12 year old German Sheppard, Rainee, (90 pound puppy to me) due mostly to old age. Thinking back about her, she was the best listener I knew. Never judging, never had anywhere else she’d rather be, always comforting and always willing to give you a hug and a kiss AND you always felt better after talking to her because usually she made you smile and laugh. This reminds me of how Dr. E is always telling us we should be better listeners and that it will get us a long way in life. I agree. Everyone should be more like a family pet. : )

As far as the guest lecture on Monday about PR…

For someone who really isn’t all that interested in PR as a career, this presentation was valuable in the sense that many of the points made about marketing clients can be applied to other aspects of life including public health campaigning or job hunting. The points included: figuring out who you are (SWOT: strength, weaknesses, opportunities & threat), how are you different/better, goals (specific, trackable, time bound & measurable), networking, using media publicity and following up.

When the guest speaker said that her mother never understood what she did, it reminded me of when I tell people I am studying Public Health. In my experience they always seem to responds with “that’s cool” or “that’s interesting” as if they know, but have a confused look on their face. If they ask a following question it is usually, “so what do you want to do with that” or “so what exactly is that” or else they immediately think of medical things. While Public Health is becoming better known, a lot of people don’t really know what it is.

Interestingly enough this guy started talking to me on the trolley today on my way to school. He asked what I was studying. I responded with “I am getting my Master’s in Public Health”. His response was, “so what are you going to work at FEMA or something?” I laughed thinking he was kidding because of the fake press conference that happened last week. I then realized he hadn’t heard about that and was serious.

FYI

Here's a blog that has up-to-date information about the San Diego Fires. I have been watching it consistently.
http://sosdfireblog.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=31

Week 8

This week in class we talked about how to frame our messages. Here are examples we talked about in class to show how important it is to frame our messages in a way so that we will get the response we are looking for. As someone in class mentioned how we talk to people or how Doctors/Employers convey messages is important because everyone can interpret the same thing very differently. Is that part of Med/grad school? How to tell patients and/or families the news on their diagnosis? Almost seems like it should be. I think we have to be careful of what we are really trying to say and if our audience will see it in the same way we do.

If you’re going to buy a calculator that cost $20 at the bookstore on campus or else $10 just off campus, would you go a little out of your way to save $10? Now, if you are buying a computer and it is $1000 on campus, but $990 just off-campus, then would you go out of your way to save $10? I learned that convenience is a really big deal to me. Family and friends… what would you do?

Another example with gains and losses:

If your boss gave you $100 bonus, would you be happy?
Now if you boss gave you $100 bonus, but your other co-workers $500, would you be happy?
What was once a gain, all of a sudden became a loss.

Family and friends… what would you do? (*Hint, hint… looking for some participation*)

And another example…
What is the best way to communicate about risk if giving a statistic?
How do we present information?

- 1% of population
- 1 out of 100
- .01
- 10 out of 1000

I hope you all find these little activities enjoyable and you have a great weekend/week!

Week 7

This week in class we talked about health literacy. This is something I hadn’t really thought much about before, but now realize how important it is for health professionals to put what they mean in plain language opposed to words and sentences that are complicated to the average person. We watched a video about this with real stories from people talking about their complications with health literacy. One example was a lady in a drug store trying to buy some throat drops for her husband who had diabetes. She was reading the labels to make sure to get something without sugar. Because the label did not read “sugar” she assumed it was okay. However, it did read fructose and glucose, yet she didn’t realize that meant sugar.

Another example that sticks out to me was the lady who had to take pills different times of day, but she couldn’t understand when exactly she was supposed to take them. She knew she needed to take 2 per day so she just took them both in the morning. She was really supposed to be taking one in the morning and one at night. These are examples of what happens to people when we don’t speak and write in plain language. It is important to consider the literacy level of the majority of people.

I also learned something interesting about myself in this lab exercise. After we watched the video we looked at a PowerPoint presentation done by the same group of people with similar information. I realized that right after I could barely remember anything that was on the slides, yet several different stories stuck out in my mind from the video. I guess different people have different learning styles, but for me stories stick better than facts. Another personal example is that if I watch a movie based on Pearl Harbor or WWII events I am much more likely to learn than if I read a history book.

Week 6

In terms of spill your guts… I agree with what other people have been saying, I think sometimes people just want to talk. I totally agree with what Dr. Engelberg said about sometimes people ask for advice, but they don’t really want it, they just want to talk. As Sarah said, sometimes they will sort things out on their own by talking through it. I used to work at a car wash and we had regular customers that came in every single week at the same time to wash their car, most of the time, not because it was dirty, but because they wanted someone to talk to. They would tell you the craziest stories just to talk. Same thing with my job now. I do a lot of phone call recruiting and people will go off on tangents telling me totally unrelated stories. While I think it is important to listen to people, sometimes there is a time to cut them off.

I also thought it was interesting when Dr. Engelberg mentioned that people expect us to know everything about Public Health because we are getting (or have) our master’s. I mean we are supposed to be “Master’s” in the subject, right? How daunting! How can in 2 years we possibly know EVERYTHING? Here’s an example just that happened to me. Just the other day I was on the phone with my mom. Since I am running a marathon this weekend my mom was talking to me about eating healthy and making sure I get my vitamins, etc. In the background I hear my step dad say to her, “Don’t be telling Lindsay how to eat, she’s the expert”. I laugh because while nutrition is important to me (I’m doing my thesis on it, geez), my whole life my mother has been my nutrition resource. I guess now I am supposed to be the “expert” because I mean, I am getting my master’s in public health. : )

In response to Crystals question (why are we, in the U.S. so into putting ourselves into categories), I think whether you like to be in a “category” or like to be “labeled” or not, in general we like to know about ourselves, where we fit in, what kind of person we are, and things of the like. I think it is always interesting to read what those evaluations have to say and see if you think that description fits you.

Week 5

We watched a Video this week called “Breaking through the clutter” about advertising and what motivates a consumer to buy. It was interesting to learn that we are exposed to 2,400 pieces of advertising per week. I never realized it was that much, which brings me to, how do we grab people’s attention? When we are constantly being bombarded, there is a limited amount of information that is actually absorbed. How do we make our messages stand out?

It was also interesting to hear Dr. Engelberg say that we need to know what triggers our own responses and what motivates us first. Sometimes I think I overlook myself and I try to think about what other people want to see or feel. However, how am I supposed to expect other people to know what they want, when I don’t even know it myself? Now I am thinking...

The main topic for this week was segmentation. We did a little exercise outside where we segmented ourselves demographically (by gender), geographically (by where we live), psychographically (by our values and beliefs) and behaviorally (by what we actually do). It was really interesting to see that even though we are all in the same class and have similar interests in regards to health, that we could be so different in our values and beliefs on health. I thought was particularly interesting as students getting our master’s in public health that we rank health as something very important to us and most of us believe that exercising regularly is important, yet we don’t all do it. It makes me wonder, if WE don’t do it, how can we expect others (those who don’t even think about health regularly) to do it?

Week 4 blog: End of module 1

The top 3 things from module 1 that stick out in mind:

*Duel process persuasion: The duel processing approach ties into some different areas we’ve covered in class. Not only do we need to realize that maybe generally people think heuristically, therefore we need to think about how to grab people’s attention with health concerns, but this ties into the “house” example Dr. Engelberg was talking about with the idea of just getting people in the house. It doesn’t have to be through the front door, it could be the window or chimney, but once you get people to take a step in the right direction then the work will take care of itself. We also need to consider the population we’re working with. As Jennifer commented on my page, blogging is great to communicate to the younger population, but not so much to the elderly. My grandmother already emailed me back and said sorry, but as much as I love you, I refuse to do anything on the computer besides email. Leading into how important it is to know your audience. It is good to be confident in our knowledge of public health and everything that we have learned, but we have to also realize that no matter how much we study, we don’t know what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes and we have to show the respect to the community of people and ask them. This all falls into what we have been talking about in class with formative research, S-M-C-R-D, wrong reason, selectivity and simply what motivates people to care about an issue?

*Focus groups: In Monday’s class we learned about focus groups and how they are facilitated and generally how they go. Then we did a great exercise with partners where we had an “interviewer” and an “interviewee” and we asked each other to talk about a topic. The interviewer’s job was to ask open-ended questions to keep the other person talking, use probing techniques and restatement and clarification responses. I think that this is a great way to communicate with someone, it lets the other person know that you are interested, you’re paying attention, you care about what they’re saying and that you understood it. However, I think that most of us do not talk this way and when we do, especially in peer group situations, the other people think we’re crazy. Example: I was trying to use these techniques this week with a friend and as I was probing for more about her story and trying make comments like “wow, really?” she was like, “what are you doing?” Sometimes I think when you probe you almost seem nosey or as if you’re intruding in some weird way. It sounds so funny on both ends. I think that this is a really nice and considerate way of talking to someone, so why don’t we do it more often outside of focus groups so that it is the norm? Are we too busy to care to get the full story or really hear out what someone is saying? Or are we too self-absorbed that we just don’t care what they say? Or do we think that we interpret everything the way the story-teller meant us to?

*Presentations: Also in class on Monday we talked about the do’s and don’ts of giving a good presentation. I think presentation skills are a really important part of communication and getting across a message. Unfortunately my education thus far has not required me to do many presentations, which I feel puts me at a real disadvantage. I realized after listening to the lecture on presentation skills that I DO everything that I am NOT suppose to. One key point was to “own your space” and “be confident”. I think that if you show a lack of confidence it makes your message seem less important. I stand like a stork on one leg looking like I’m about to fall over, clearly not owning my space. Another tip was to “put a smile in your voice”. I don’t know how many times as a stubborn teenager I heard my step-dad say that to me. It used to make me so mad. However, I now understand the benefit especially at work when talking to people over the phone, they can tell when you have a smile on your face. Never before have I really thought about giving a presentation as a way of health communication, but I have now learned that it is really important to have good presentation skills because it will get your message across in a much more efficient and easy to understand way without the audience being distracted by your random body language and behaviors.

Week 2 - 663

This week in class we talked about how people think, more specifically the idea of dual processing. We read an article www.as.wvu.edu/~sbb/comm221/chapters/dual.htm that discusses how generally people think in 1 of 2 ways, either heuristically or systematically. Heuristically meaning, thinking just enough about the situation to be aware, but not thinking carefully enough to catch flaws, errors and inconsistencies. Systematically being where someone mostly thinks carefully and effortfully, “the thought process is active, creative and alert.” The article mentions that most people generally think heuristically.

If this is true, while we’re trying to promote health campaigns how do we grab people’s attention?

If you were to ask someone to rank in order the top 5 things they care about, most of the time health would be in the top 5 if not 3. However, why is it that people don’t respond to health campaigns or continue to put themself at risk? Many ads, commercials, etc. use sex, looks and money to promote their products because as they say, “sex sells”. As public health advocates, what do we have? Trans fats, mammograms and smoking! Is it no wonder the people we are trying to reach don’t pay attention? So… should we be using sex, looks and money to promote health? Whether or not we do, it is imperative to figure out how to grab our population’s attention and start to care about these health risks!

Week 1- 663

The first day of class…

In class, week 1, we watched a 10 min. video designed by the CDC recapping the major health concerns of the last 50 years. It was interesting to see how some of the concerns we have conquered and others we are still battling. Something that stuck out to me was when Dr. Engelberg asked about what the next 50 years will look like as far as health concerns. It is hard to predict or even think about what will be the hot topic 50 years from now because it is difficult to get past the current public health issues going on right now. I liked the analogy used about the river and how we have to think about it like it is always flowing and always changing. While we may think a particular issue is important, there will always be something else that comes along and will take over. The other thing I think is easy to forget is that everyone’s idea of what is most important is different. I would venture to guess that even within this class there would be variability as well as within our family, friends, community and amongst different cultures. I think this is very important to remember when promoting health and trying to get people to change their behavior.

Some ideas that were discussed in class, as well as my own, about what the major health concerns will be in the next 50 years: maybe a cure for some type of cancer or HIV, another natural disaster, less people smoking, no more trans fats, global warming, obesity (hopefully on the turn around), physical activity, nutrition, new STI or maybe another vaccine to prevent an existing STI, breast cancer, health care, and the list never ends…