Global health communication Bella Mody, PhD School of Journalism and Mass Communication CU Boulder

Jim Foege, former CDC Director: “This is the golden age of global health…” Jim Yong Kim, Dept of Social Medicine, Harvard Med School: “10 million die of preventable diseases annually…”

Examples of Years of Life Lost (% 2002) to -communicable diseases -non-communicable diseases -injuries (Source: WHO) Brazil 30/50/20 Peru 43/42/15 India 58/29/13 Zimbabwe 90/7/4 USA 9/75/17

How social science researchers in Communication can help: Interpersonal communication Organizational communication Media campaigns for public health communication

Today: focus on public health communication How do we know it can potentially work?

Female infanticide in India The decline in “zero-grazing” in Uganda

Exs of media mixes available Lit % F/M Dly ppr /000 %hh TV % cells/ indv Internet/ 000 China 90/90 59 89 35 85 Thailand 91/95 20 92 63 110 Uganda 58/77 3 5 7 17

Beyond ministerial/doc campaign design The Sesame Street model: team production, evidence-based Audience evidence needed at 4 stages: 1. pre-production establishment of specs what to communicate, how to communicate 2. mid-production message pretesting 3. exposure testing after dissemination 4. impact evaluation

Interdisciplinary research methods for pre-production research: Lit reviews Experience interviews: practitioners Unobtrusive observation of population Open-ended group interviews In-depth individual interviews Random sample surveys for prevalence

Research methods for mid-production draft message testing - appeal, comprehension, immediate recall, credibility, utility, action-ability: -atomistic or holistic testing

Impact evaluation: third party outsiders, experimental and control groups