Health Literacy Annual Research Conference

For those with interests related to health literacy, you might want to check out the Health Literacy Annual Research Conference. From the conference website:

The Health Literacy Annual Research Conference will be an interdisciplinary meeting for investigators dedicated to health literacy research. It will be an opportunity to advance the field of health literacy, a method to raise the quality of our research, and a venue for professional development.

Our aim is to attract a full range of investigators engaged in health literacy research including faculty involved in a broad array of public health, health services, epidemiology, translational, and interventional research activities.

The deadline for abstract submission is August 19, 2009.

The Language of Reform

As per usual, On the Media comes through with a great look at the mass media. There was a great segment on Friday about the language of healthcare reform. In it Frank Luntz discusses some of the most effective ways of framing the debate going on in Washington. If you're curious in a longer look at Luntz's thoughts on the matter, you can see The Language of Healthcare 2009.

The show also featured nice pieces on polling related to healthcare reform and the view of a Canadian journalist (playfully titled Blame Canada).

This isn't an area of health communication that I'm personally engaged in, but public opinion, policy, and politics are always of interest.

Useful Cite: Childhood Obesity and Hospitalizations

I'm posting this partly so I can always find the citation myself, but I'm sure this will be useful to plenty of others out there, too. A new study published in Health Affairs (the PDF is here), researchers found that the number of children hospitalized with a primary or secondary diagnosis of obesity doubled between 1999 and 2005. That's despite the fact that the childhood obesity rate itself certainly didn't double during that period.

The citation for the study is: Trasande, L., Liu, Y., Fryer, G., & Weitzman, M. (2009). Effects Of Childhood Obesity On Hospital Care And Costs, 1999–2005. Health Affairs, 28(4), w751-w760.

It makes for interesting reading, both in terms of health outcomes and costs. I'm sure in the future this will fit into a lot of literature reviews on the necessity of addressing the childhood obesity epidemic.

F as in Fat

This came out a couple weeks ago, but I just came back to F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America 2009 yesterday while digging through some literature for an article. From an introduction to this report:

Adult obesity rates increased in 23 states and did not decrease in a single state in the past year, according to F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America 2009, a report released today by the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). In addition, the percentage of obese and overweight children is at or above 30 percent in 30 states.

It's mildly depressing that obesity went up in half the states in the country and didn't decrease anywhere. Not good... One of the other findings that I thought was interesting:

The current economic crisis could exacerbate the obesity epidemic. Food prices, particularly for more nutritious foods, are expected to rise, making it more difficult for families to eat healthy foods. At the same time, safety-net programs and services are becoming increasingly overextended as the numbers of unemployed, uninsured and underinsured continue to grow. In addition, due to the strain of the recession, rates of depression, anxiety and stress, which are linked to obesity for many individuals, also are increasing.

I know challenges buying (and preparing) healthier foods are consistently mentioned in the literature and our own research onto why adults have a hard time preparing healthy meals for themselves and their children. While the economy muddles along and unemployment doesn't seem to be getting any better, somehow I'm doubtful that obesity rates are going to start dropping as the economy turns around.

That would be an interesting health promotion effort, though... In advertising a lot of consumers have cut back from branded products (detergents, shampoos, etc.) and a lot of companies are concerned how consumers will respond once the economy picks up. Will they go back to Tide and Kleenex and Oreos? Or will they stick with private label brands once they've become used to the quality (or realized there is no difference)? Maybe it would be productive to try and engage the public on eating healthier as they have more money to spend on food instead of just "trading up" to branded junk food again...

Novo Nordisk, Twitter, and Fine Print

Advertising Age has an article today about Novo Nordisk launching a branded Twitter effort: @racewithinsulin. This is the first branded Twitter effort from a pharma company, so I spent a few minutes poking around.

The very first thing that caught my eye was the fair balance information on the left side of the page, which is REALLY small and hard to read. (At least on my computer.)

Beyond that, I'm curious how people are going to respond to this. The Twitter bio information reports that: "Racecar driver Charlie Kimball partners with Novo Nordisk to prove his high performance career is possible with diabetes."

I wonder how people will view this, compared to (for example) neutral mass media coverage of a star living and succeeding with diabetes. Jay Cutler and Adam Morrison both come to mind. How does the fact that this is Novo Nordisk influence how people will view the information? Time shall tell, but I thought the first branded pharma Twitter effort was worth noting.

Call for Papers: Family & Community Health Journal's Special Issue on CBPR

I got this in an e-mail today and figured it couldn't hurt to spread the word a bit about this special issue of Family & Community Health.



The interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal Family & Community Health will produce an issue on community based participatory health (CBPR). Articles are due by September 1, 2009 to Issue Co-Editors Elnora (Nonie) P. Mendias and Elizabeth (Liz) Reifsnider at the University of Texas Medical Branch School of Nursing in Galveston, Texas. Please submit manuscripts for consideration electronically to nmendias@utmb.edu and elreifsn@utmb.edu.

Articles are being solicited on CBPR topics as follows:
* CBPR and policy
* Building CBPR infrastructure
* CBPR and environmental health
* Building community partnerships for CBPR
* Using CBPR with vulnerable populations
* CBPR research
* Examples of research using CBPR
* Evaluation research using CBPR

Family & Community Health (FCH) focuses on healthcare practitioners regardless of area of practice. The journal's common goal is to provide a forum to discuss a holistic approach to family and community healthcare and primary healthcare, including health promotion and disease prevention. Each issue of FCH focuses on a specific topic that can be used by faculty, practitioners, and students in a range of healthcare disciplines.

FCH is indexed in the Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature (CINAHL); Current Contents/Social and Behavioral Sciences; Research Alert; Social SciSearch; Family Studies Database; Health Promotion and Education Database; Cancer Prevention and Control Database; Nursing Abstracts; Psychological Abstracts; PsychINFO; PsysLIT; Journals@ovid; Sociological Abstracts; Social Planning/Policy & Development Abstracts; MEDLINE; MEDLARS; and Index Medicus.

For further information about the journal or to access the Author Guide on the Family & Community Health website at http://www.familyandcommunityhealth.com.

Menu Labeling: Does Providing Nutrition Information at the Point of Purchase Affect Consumer Behavior?

Last month RWJ put out a report on how menu labeling affects consumer behavior. The full report is available as a PDF here. I haven't had a chance to read the entire report yet, but one of the initial bullet points quickly caught my attention:

Most consumers would like to see nutrition information at places where they go out to eat; however, only limited research has explored how well this information is understood by consumers and which consumers may be most likely to use menu labels in making decisions about what to purchase.

I'd never considered this as another context for some of my own work related to health literacy, but it likely meshes up pretty well with some of my other interests and the interests of students in advertising. For anyone interested in the communication of health information, I think this report will have some good information and useful references, too.

FDA Warnings and Mental Health Stigma

The New York Times had an article yesterday about the FDA requiring black box warnings on Chantix and Zyban, anti-smoking drugs from Pfizer and GlaxsoSmithKline respectively.

From the article:

Federal drug regulators warned Wednesday that patients taking two popular stop-smoking drugs should be watched closely for signs of serious mental illness, as reported suicides among the drugs’ users mount.

There is certainly an argument to be made that DTC drug advertising can help reduce stigma around certain conditions, including mental health issues. I think there are a variety of reasons this might happen, if for no other reason than running ads for drugs to treat depression on major television networks has to communicate that a lot of people might be interested in those drugs.

Reading the NYT article, I’m left wondering how black box warnings for drugs like Chantix and Zyban work in the opposite direction. As the media covers this issue (which they should), people are going to be reading about side effects (serious mental illness) that have resulted in these stronger warnings. Does that contribute to the stigmatization of mental illness? I don’t know, but it seems like an interesting question worth a bit more study...