Well that UPHA presentation sure has stirred up a lot of conversation and action! One person I met at UDOH, said that she now has three blogs instead of one and is working on developing an arthritis blog for her program. Can't wait to see it!
Another result of this program is my new position at the Diabetes Prevention and Control Program at UDOH as a media specialist. I was just compiling some information about media, social marketing and public health and thought I'd share it here.
First, the video called Brochures to Blogs is a great resource (produced by the California Department of Public Health Immunization Branch). It summarizes the need for public health professional to have a presence on the web. I say check it out (even though I'm not a huge fan of the background music).
Watch the rest of the video here.
Second, one of the experts interviewed on that video is from the National Center for Health Marketing. Their website is another great collection of resources like examples of success (e.g. REACH's marketing efforts (4.62 MB)) to global health applications.
Third, I heard about a keynote address at the recent UPHA conference by R. Craig Lefebvre, PhD. Apparently I totally missed out because he spoke on "The Mobile World and Behavior Change." If you attended it, please fill me in. In the mean time, I found his blog and really like his post on Segmenting Black America. Another great resource.
Fourth, after just a few clicks, the Guide to Managing U.S. Government Websites has already given me simple ways to make improvements of the Diabetes Program's website.
Finally, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has a research-based guide to usable and useful websites (usability.gov). So far I'd say it's straightforward, easy to navigate, and ... practices what it preaches. It has a lot of great examples of how to organizations using their guidelines as well.
There you go! Hope this helps. Let me know what you think of these!
[UPDATE] We are gearing up at UDOH to develop an updated web presence based on the above guidelines. Speaking of, a colleague just forwarded this article to me, titled New Media Cases in Cases in Public Health Communication & Marketing: The Promise and Potential. Check it out and please share your thoughts!
