Director's Blog
Health Marketing Musings
from Jay M. Bernhardt, PhD, MPH
It was great seeing old colleagues and meeting new innovators in Toronto recently at the 11th World Congress on Internet in Medicine (MedNet) (http://www.mednetcongress.org/). I had the honor of delivering the keynote address at the conference (
12 pages/1.72 MB) and today's blog will offer a brief synopsis of my remarks.
Despite millions of searchable health pages and thousands of interactive and personalized health applications available online, we still possess almost no evidence that today's e-health universe is improving or protecting the overall health of the public. Even considering only the population of people with meaningful access to the internet, how confident are we that what we call e-health is responsible for measurably reducing morbidity and mortality of the people who use it?
If we hope to realize population-level health improvements from the internet, we must incorporate the needs and participation of the public into today's e-health models. We must put the "public" into e-health to create a new model of "E-Public-Health" (EPH). EPH shifts the emphasis in healthcare from treatment toward prevention and health protection. EPH means using the internet not only for information dissemination, but first and foremost, as a ubiquitous decision support tool for all aspects of health from the most monumental decisions to the most minute.
At CDC, we are using this model to improve the population-level health impact of our website (http://www.cdc.gov) and all of our other innovative electronic communications. Effective EPH is rooted in the 3 P's of Personalization, Presentation, and Participation. It is our goal to deliver health information that is personalized for every user, presented on demand to users in any format through any channel, in a highly engaging manner with strong user participation in the content and the process. Furthermore, the 4 P's of marketing (Price, Product, Place, and Promotion) are critical for making e-health information as entertaining and emotional as it is accurate, credible, and relevant.
New media applications are particularly well suited for EPH because of their high degree of interactivity, participation, social networking, and entertainment. To that end, CDC is venturing into Second Life and Whyville, e-health marketing our way into MySpace and YouTube, planning webinars to link leading scientists with leading bloggers, and taking a serious look at serious games. We also are exploring the creation of online "E-Health Labs" where open-source research-based applications can be shared and evaluated and those that work can be incorporated into population-level interventions.
We invite you to help us as we move forward into this exciting environment. If you have applications to share, please let us know at cdcweb@cdc.gov. If you have additional thoughts about EPH, send me an email or post a response to the blog. We look forward to hearing from you.
Posted by: Jay at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Submit a comment
Jay,
I enjoyed your latest posting and certainly agree we need to find ways of measuring impact through this tool. One particular challenge in the e-environment is helping people (users) find credible sources of public health information. Since there are few or no filters it is possible that our good messages can be diluted or even contradicted by other sources and the lay public may be confused or mislead. Part of the challenge, therefore, in relying on the Internet for our message is to establish a means for assuring the public where the good stuff resides. I've heard talk of a "Good Housekeeping Seal" approach. What do you think? / Dan
Received from Dan Rutz on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 10:44 AMCommentJay,
Exciting vision! I look forward to helping make it a reality.
Colleen Jones, MA
User Experience Associate
Division of E-Health Marketing (e-Health)
National Center for Health Marketing (NCHM)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
McKing Consulting
CommentHi Jay,
Dan's comment about a Good Housekeeping Seal type of "endorsement" of health-advice websites by the CDC is worth exploring and it triggered a thought. Consumers Union, which publishes the independent and unbiased Consumer Reports magazine, has a helpful health section on its website-http://www.consumerreports.org/main/crh/home.jsp. CU does not accept advertising or support from product manufacturers. While CU traditionally tests products, it would be interesting to consider whether collaboration between the CDC and CU to evaluate and potentially "endorse" other web-based health information sites would make sense.
Jim Nowicki
Received from Jim Nowicki on Friday, November 17, 2006 8:28 AMCommentJay,
As a healthcare consumer, I appreciate the CDC's focus on EPH. I've long believed in the power of an educated consumer and the web offers a wealth of information. Of course, not all of it is accurate or consistent and any help that the CDC can offer on how to navigate through it will be most welcome. Related to the point about being an educated consumer of healthcare, has anyone considered the impact of EPH on the doctor/patient relationship? Well informed dialogue between patient and provider should be mutually beneficial and serve to increase the patient's responsibility for their health. However, doctors' schedules being what they are may not always permit the time for lots of discussion. Moreover, some doctors may not be prepared for the dynamic of better informed patients who question their diagnosis.
The channels of communication that enable EPH can also be therapeutic in and of themselves, especially during disasters. During 9/11, Katrina and other major disasters, those affected immediately tried to contact emergency resources and loved ones. This was not always possible due to local system overload or destruction of infrastructure, causing even greater stress for all concerned. Anything that can be done to harness the power of modern communication resources (social sites, call centers, bulletin boards, etc.) in order to quickly link loved ones together can go a long way toward minimizing the mental trauma caused by future disasters.
EPH will impact healthcare in ways not anticipated. It's reassuring that the CDC is paying close attention to it.
Jim Nowicki
Received from Jim Nowicki on Friday, November 17, 2006 8:39 AMCommentJay,
We are so excited about the work that your office is doing, Jay. We have long been working with STD Prevention and Control in terms of bringing technology to sexual health and disease prevention. I also heard you speak at the MedNet conference about your department's goals and aspirations and it was very inspiring.
We're hoping to stay abreast of new developments in Health Marketing.
All the best,
Deb
Deb Levine, MA
Executive Director
Internet Sexuality Information Services, Inc.
CommentJay,
I believe that Health on the Net Foundation tries to provide a "seal of approval" for online health sites. I'm not sure how widely used it is, but their website says more…
http://www.hon.ch/HONcode/HONcode_membership.html
Received from Janice Nall on Friday, December 8, 2006 5:11 PMCommentJay,
This was a great post, but as I blogged today about the recent AP state-by-state survey of official pandemic plans, I'm not certain everyone at CDC has gotten the message about how helpful wikis can be.
Received from David Stephenson on Friday, December 18, 2006, 9:28 AMComment