Technology, Health Communication, and Public Health

My thesis could be based on:

"The rapid emergence of new communication technologies and new uses of older technologies, such as telephone, also provide new opportunities and dilemmas. A variety of electronic media for interactive health communication (for example, teh Internet, CD-ROMs, and personal digital assistants [PDAs]) can serve as source of individualized health information, reminders, and social support for health behavior change (Viswanath, 2006; Ahern, Phalen, Le, and Goldman, 2007). These new technologies also may connect individuals with similar health concerns around the world (Bukachi and Pakenham-Walsh, 2007). This may be especially important for people with rare or stigmatized health conditions. However, the new products of the communication revolution have not equally reached affluent and more disadvantaged populations (Viswanath, 2005, 2006).

E-health strategies are becoming an important parto f the armamentarium of strategies for those in health education adn health behavior. Internet and computer-based applications, along with wireless technologies, can support many of the Health Behavior and Health Education strategies based on theories presented in [that] book. Use of new technologies should be based on theories of health behavior and be evaluated (Ahern, Phalen, Le, and Goldman, 2007). Otherwise, we risk being technology-driven instead of outcome-driven.

At the same time, new technologies have the potential to cause harm through misleading or deceptive information, promotion of inappropriate self-care, and interference in the patient-provider relationship (Science Panel on Interactive Communciation and Health, 1999), although the empirical evidence on harms remains to be documented. Interactive health communcations provide new options for behavioral medicine and preventive medicine (Noell and Glasgow, 1999; Fotheringham, Owies, Leslie, and Owen, 2000) and are altering the context of health behavior and health education as they unfold and as their effects are studied (Hesse and others, 2005)."

Excerpt from pages 8-9 of Health Behavior and Health Education: Theory, Research, and Practice by Karen Glanz, Barbara K. Rimer, and K. Viswanath.

The Case for my Location Based App

According to my Google Reader and nytimes.com, an article was published today relaying: "Taking a step that professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to students."

The implications:

• Bridging the digital divide (and reaching the medically underserved) ... many more people own phones, but not necessarily computers. Eventually data plans will become more affordable, and even before then, I'll wager that location-based technology would become standard even sooner.
  
• Student health outreach in a college community, and best of all ...
  
• An audience for my location-based health app proposed a couple days ago -- scroll down to August 15.
  

research on technology and reaching youth with health messages

Got an assignment today to "research on technolgy [sic] and reaching youth with health messages." Might as well document it for myself and everyone else.

everything you need to know

Stanford professor Dr. BJ Fogg organized a conference (texting4health.org -- the name says it all) earlier this year addressing mobile-technology for health. He states, "Mobile phones will become the #1 platform for persuasion." Looks like the conference was done in partnership with, amongst others, the American Heart Association and ISIS.

This is excellent, it's not youth specific, but if you combine the info presented here with the pew internet research (where the above charts came from), i think it adds up to something that makes sense. and much, much more useful, telling data.

other stuff i found

case study
youth and electronic communication (section 4)

not youth oriented, but this gives you an idea of different ways to interact with and present info to the youth via texting service.

Flash animated comic strips

Years ago I was given a hard copy of this book of comic strips, Get Your War On, which was debuted by 23/6 in animation yesterday. [Obviously my embedding skills are currently on the lower end of the learning curve. Someone help, I tried readjusting the width and height in the html, but it cropped the video rather than resizing it.]



One of the projects I'm working on within the Vietnamese Community Outreach efforts of the Asian Liver Center is a collaboration with Single Asian Female to introduce the recurring subject of hepatitis B in her comic strips. We are working to syndicate the Single Asian Female comic in Vietnamese newspapers, but now, in addition, this would be a novel way to present it online and on our YouTube nonprofit channel (soon to be up and running).

By the way, John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren and Stimpy, was the first to work with Flash as a cartoon medium. And, by the way, he did my portrait.

Warning: Habits May Be Good for You

This article was shared with me this morning via hard copy. I looked for it in the health section of nytimes.com, but eventually had to resort to a search -- it resided in the Business section. Discussion to come after I read and digest the it.

Jonathan Player for The New York Times