Coordinating federal, state and local communicatioins
TV and websites are expensive; people don't consider if a TV show is broadcast locally or if a website is hosted nearby either because they aren't ...more »
TV and websites are expensive; people don't consider if a TV show is broadcast locally or if a website is hosted nearby either because they aren't localized. Radio is more local and so are newspapers. Most local are posters, meetings, and other small-cast media. Right now, national, state and local public health groups are all making media without checking in with what each other are doing. And the expenses for all these kinds of media are repeated as different groups make their own campaigns.
Funding for health communications should be designed to encourage federal agencies make or design the broadest and most expensive. They should coordinate with the state, county and city government to support them for more localized methods. Why should a city make a TV ad at $10,000 if the state of Kansas already has one, or Portland has a print campaign that could be adapted or the city could jump in on a national campaign and produce the less expensive localized media to support it?
The upshot is that we need a library where public health designs and ideas are stored and everyone funded with government money for an ad campaign has to check the existing materials. Not that they are forced to use them, but at least document that they did not re-invent the wheel for lack of checking what is already out there. If some group is using government money they have to store it on the library.
CDC Tobacco Control has such a system. Pan American Health Organization has developed a template for health promotion campaigns but hasn't launched it. We should do it for all health media - domestic or international.
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