Happy Health Literacy Month!

I would like to start off Health Literacy Month by saying Thank You to everyone who has commented on my blog. Dr. Engleberg will be happy, too.

Now on to the issue: What is health literacy and why is it important? Let me start with a scenario. Have you ever had a doctor's visit where a doctor or nurse explained something to you and then they asked you if you understood everything. You told them you did...but then you ran home and jumped on the internet or called a friend to ask them to explain what the doctor told you? I sure have. This scenario happens numerous times a day. It could range from small things like what time to take medication to accidentally signing up for a hysterectomy.

Health literacy by definition is the degree to which individual's have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. It has been reported that 50% of the U.S. population does not have the literacy level to fully function in the current economy, let alone understand medical terminology that impacts their life. This is a huge issue!

In my opinion, there are two ways to combat this problem.
1. Medical professionals (and everyone relaying health information) needs to modify their language so that it is understandable to the majority of the population. The difference between telling someone their tumor is "not cancer" versus "benign" is a huge step in the right direction.

2. Health professionals need to make patients feel comfortable enough that they wouldn't feel inadequate or "dumb" if they ask a question or explain that they don't understand the inofrmation given to them.

There is a large movement in the U.S. that wants to combat this issue with "PLAN LANGUAGE." This means clear, concise, necessary health information that can be understood by the general population. You can find more information about the Plain Language movement at this website: http://www.plainlanguage.gov/populartopics/health_literacy/index.cfm


Just to recap the last few weeks of class...

I think the main take away message was the importance of knowing your target audience and being able to accurately segment them. This concept is possibly the most important idea for a health campaign because if you can't connect with who you are aiming your messages at, it doesn't really matter what you are saying.

Labels, Labels, Labels

This week we we introduced to a couple new audience segmentation tools. The first one is the Claritas Prizm system. This is used for determining geographics of a target population, but it's also fun to use to see who lives in your area. To find out what kinds of people live near you, click on the link, type in your zipcode, and see what comes up! http://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20

According to this website, my zipcode in Mission Valley is filled with a bunch of young adults right out of college with careers and no children....yeah, I'll agree to that.

Another segmentation tool is the VALS system. http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/

This system puts people into different categories based on their answer to a short survey. Go ahead and take it. See what your label is. I was an Achiever/Innovator. I wasn't shocked by this label. The description of the Achiever said that this person puts family, religion, and career first. Yep, that's me.

These tools are good to use to assist in the segmentation of your target audience....in addition to being fun to just play with. As Dr. Engleberg said, for some reason Americans like to be labeled. I think this is a true statement but I'm not sure why this is. People are always trying to be "unique" while being "just like everyone else". Maybe that's why we like labels. We want to be part of a group identity, yet these labels also give us ideas about how to break from the mold. Regardless, I am an Achiever/Innovator...for today at least.

Lastly, I'm gonna give a little information about my group project. We are working with the organization, Shakti Rising. http://www.shaktirising.org/ From what I know so far, I think they are a fantastic organization that is full of women with servant's hearts who really want to make a difference in their lives, while helping others heal. Our task is to help them with their goal of finding dedicated volunteers to teach, help heal, and lead women to recovery from various traumatic experiences. Finding dedicated volunteers for this project will be quite a challenge, but I think my group and I are definately up to the challenge!

Who is your audience?

The topic of this week's class was audience segmentation. This involves separating out your audience based on demographics, geographics, sociographics, psychographics, etc. We demonstrated this idea by segmenting the individuals in our class based on the region of San Diego that we live in (geographics), gender (demographics), beliefs about nutrition and exercise (psychographics), etc. The main lesson that I learned from this "lab" was that for most health topics, segmenting an audience solely by geographics or demographics will not be the most efficient method for having a large impact. Before developing a campaign, we must also look at the beliefs and attitudes of a population. Although it's easier and often more cost effective to look solely at demographics and geographics, sociographics and psychographics cannot be ignored.

The creators of the O Water commercial below claim that they are targeting people who care about fitness and what they put in their bodies. I think that I could be considered someone who cares about fitness and what I put in my body, but this does nothing for me. It doesn't do enough for me to make me want to buy the product, let alone be interested in it. Take a look...

O-Water Commercial

And, How Does That Make You Feel??

This week, Moshe--our professor-- dared us to apply the idea of active listening to at least three people. Ok, it wasn't a dare, it was an assignment. When you are going to try really hard to be an active listener, you have a little tool box of questions: open-ended questions, clarifications, restatements, a lot of "how does that make you feel?" haha. I gotta tell you, this was a very eye-opening experience. I had no idea how much I talk!! After trying out this "active listening" idea, I realized that most of the people I talk to do just that. They are very active listeners and just let me spill my guts without seeming too inconvenienced by it. Here's an example: I tested this assignment out on my boss and he was very difficult. Every time I asked him a question, he would answer and then immediately turn the subject back to me. This game of ping pong happened for quite a while. I put all of my tools to work and STILL the conversation kept coming back to me and my life. I guess he's just a varsity active listener and I'm still on JV.

Moving on...I was really interested in the idea of Wrong Reason Health Promotion that was brought up in class this week. The name "Wrong Reason" is misleading. Wrong reason HP refers to giving our audience a reason for behaving a particular way, because that is what motivates them, not necessarily the reason that will ultimately have the medical or social consequence that public health professionals are working for.

I guarantee that we've all seen this, been manipulated by it, and used it in our own lives. Here's a personal example. When I was a teenager, my parents used to urge me to use sunscreen every time I stepped out on to the tennis court. Their reason for wanting me to use sunscreen was for the prevention of skin cancer-- the "Right Reason". But my reason for using sunscreen was to avoid getting a sunburn...and as a result, getting the skin cancer lecture from my dad, AGAIN. At 15, did I really care that there was a possibility that when I turn 45 I might get skin cancer? Not really. Thankfully, now I do, but I didn't then.

So, do I believe in Wrong Reason HP? You bet I do! Who cares if 5 year olds know the nutritional benefit of eating vegetables?! Moral of the story: If you aren't going to figure out what will motivates someone to change their behaior, before urging them to do it, your success rate will probably be very tiny.

Perfect Persuasion

Did you know that most of the time we are heuristic thinkers? Ok, well it will probably help if I explained what that means. Heuristic thinking is a method of processing in which we are only "skimming the surface" of a message. We aren't thinking carefully, or systematically, but rather paying enough attention to simply be aware of the situation. Unfortunately, I think I fall into this heuristic way of thinking more often than most people. I blame it on the fact that most of the time I am multi-tasking. I think most people are that way these days. We are a busy bunch and we don't have time to listen carefully to ever message thrown at us!

But, knowing this about people makes health promotion communication a little easier. We know that in order to get our message across, we need to have a lot of cues and a lot of effective attention-getters. Because most people use this way of thinking more often, these cues and attention-getters are of the utmost importance. And for the systematic thinkers in the audience, we need to add in a little more "substance" to our message.

Beer commercials often aim to persuade the heuristic thinkers by using attractive women as the attention-getters. We shouldn't pick on the beer companies, though. Almost every commercial is aimed at the heuristic thinker in some respect. Do you ever talk to your friends or coworkers about funny commercials you've seen, but can't remember what the commercial was for? That happens to me all the time. There's a commercial about text messaging between a mother and daughter where the daughter only responds in test-lingo. I thought that commercial was pretty funny and I quote it with my coworkers all the time, but I have no idea what cell phone company it was for. Does that mean that the company failed in their mission? I obviously was attracted to the commercial but in the end, I wasn't influenced to buy their product.

Make it Easy, Please!

I ran across this posting on MSN.com. It describes 8 foods that we should eat everyday to keep us healthy. Anytime I see easy ways to make healthy changes, I jump on it. That's why I named this blog, "1-2-3 Be Healthy". And, it's what most people need, I think. Who has time to flip their daily schedule upside-down, just to lose a few pounds? This is what I normally hear: "Give me a few easy things I can do each day to be more healthy." That's all most of us really have time for, anyway. So, my goal today is to pass on an easy way to get powerful immunity-boosting, cancer-fighting, weight-controlling, etc etc etc, foods into your daily routine. You can read the article at http://health.msn.com/dietfitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100169452&GT1=10412. But let me summarize it for you...

SPINACH

Why- Muscle and bone builder, Great for your heart, Aids in eyesight

How to get it in- mix fresh spinach in with your salads, add spinach to your pizza or scrambled eggs

YOGURT

Why- Cancer fighter, Bone builder, Boosts immunity

How to get it in- pack it in your lunch for a healthy snack, top with nuts and blueberries for breakfast, use plain yogurt for the base in your veggie dip

TOMATOES

Why- Cancer fighter, Boosts immunity, Great for your heart

How to get it in- ask for double tomato sauce on your pizza, pile on the ketchup, drink a low-sodium V8

CARROTS

Why- Cancer fighter, Aids in eyesight, Boosts immunity

How to get it in- snack on baby carrots, add carrots to your salad, slice extra thin and add to your sandwiches

BLUEBERRIES

Why- Cancer fighter, Stimulates the brain, Great for your heart, Boosts immunity

How to get it in- add fresh blueberries to your cereal or yogurt, blend in a smoothie or milkshake, spread blueberry jam on toast

BLACK BEANS

Why- Muscle builder, Stimulates the brain, Great for your heart

How to get it in- add to salads, tacos, burritos, and chili; puree with olive oil and garlic for a healthy dip

WALNUTS

Why- Muscle builder, Stimulates the brain, Cancer fighter, Great for your heart, Boosts immunity

How to get it in- sprinkle on salads, dice and add to pancake batter, mix with berries and add to yogurt, pack in your lunch to snack on during the work day

OATS

Why- Muscle builder, Great for your heart, Stimulates the brain

How to get it in- eat granola or oatmeal for breakfast, sprinkle in yogurt, add to homemade cookies